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SEPTEMBER  DAYS  ON 
NANTUCKET 


BY 


WILLIAM  ROOT  BLISS 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


1902 


COPYRIGHT,   1903,   BY  WILLIAM   ROOT  BLISS 
ALL   RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Published  June,  1902 


TO 

MISS  NINA  ROWLAND 

OF 
NANTUCKET  ANCESTRY 


193632 


Tou  need  not  fear for  a  surfeit; 
here  is  but  little,  and  that  is 
light  of  digestion. — QUARLES. 


BY-THE-WAY 

Two  comrades  went  to  Nan tuc kef  for  a 
week's  vacation.  The  island  had  been  calling 
them  a  long  time;  but  they  waited  for  the 
cloudless  days  of  September,  when  the  throng 
of  visitors  has  gone  and  summer  is  still  lin- 
gering there  ;  when  not  a  leaf  of  the  shrub- 
beries on  hillsides  and  moorlands  has  lost  its 
brilliancy,  nor  one  of  the  little  wild  flowers 
peeping  up  from  the  sods  has  wilted;  when 
at  noontimes  they  can  lie  undisturbed  on  sea- 
scented  beaches,  and  gaze  on  an  ocean  spar- 
kling in  the  mild  sunlight  of  September. 

Herein  is  their  Nantucket  Diary;  descrip- 
tive, reminiscent,  slightly  historical,  and  fla- 
vored by  the  sea. 


THE  DIARY 

Sunday  PACK 

A  VOYAGE  TO  THE  ISLAND      .     .    .     .     i 

Monday 
OLD  WINDMILLS  AND  YOUNG  WOMEN     9 

Tuesday 
OLD  HOUSES  AND  GHOSTS      ....  63 

Wednesday 
SIASCONSET  AND  SEA  WORSHIPERS       .  73 

Thursday 

SURFSIDE  AND  TOM  NEVER      .       .       .       .89 

Friday 
MADDAQUET  AND  THE  MEN  WITH  A  HOE  99 

Saturday 
WAUWINET  AND  SANKATY  LIGHT    .      ill 

Sunday  Morn 
THE  TOWN  AND  THE  CAPTAINS  .     .      123 


A  Voyage  to  the  Island 


SEPTEMBER  DAYS  ON 
NANTUCKET 

A  Voyage  to  the  Island 


mtUa? 


FIRST    DAY 


About  nine  o'clock  this 
morning  we  sailed  from 
New  Bedford  in  the  good 
steamer  Nantucket.  We  crossed  Buzzard's 
Bay,  stopped  at  Woods  Hole,  crossed  Vine- 
yard Sound,  stopped  at  Cottage  City,  and 
then  began  a  rolling  voyage  to  Nantucket, 
twenty-five  miles  southeast  by  south. 

When  our  steamer  left  the  last  landing, 
she  faced  a  dry  easterly  wind,  which  soon 
began  to  tear  wreaths  of  spray  from  the 
crests  of  the  sea ;  and  when  off  Cape  Poge, 
she  was  rolling  and  pitching  so  severely 
that  those  passengers  only  who  had  sea-legs 
could  move  about  the  decks.  Occasionally 
a  wave  struck  her  in  the  face;  then  she 
3 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

paused,  shivered  under  the  force  of  the 
blow,  and  pushed  forward  on  her  contested 
voyage. 

«« Her  hull  rose  high,  her  bows  dipped  low, 

The  surges  flashed  a-lee  ; 
And  the  man  at  the  wheel  sang  low, 
Sang  he,  — 

'  O  sea-room  and  lee-room, 
And  a  gale  to  run  afore, 
Southeast  by  south, 
And  a  bone  in  her  mouth, 
When  bound  to  Nantucket  shore.'  " 

Persons  who  assume  to  know  the  cause 
of  seasickness  say  that  it  comes  from  a  dis- 
turbance of  the  nerve  centres  produced  by 
a  lack  of  coincidence  between  die  optical 
and  the  physical  sensations ;  the  meaning 
of  which  seems  to  be  that  if  the  voyager 
sees  one  thing  and  feels  another,  seasick- 
ness will  ensue.  To  learn  the  truth  by  ex- 
perience, we  seated  ourselves  in  the  after- 
most part  of  the  steamer,  on  the  upper  deck, 
and  watched  her  various  motions,  accom- 
4 


A  Voyage  to  the  Island 

panying  them  by  similar  movements  of 
our  bodies ;  when  we  saw  her  head  going 
down  into  the  seas,  breathing  out  we 
went  down  with  it ;  when  we  saw  it  rising 
from  the  plunge,  breathing  in  we  rose 
with  it;  when  she  rolled  from  larboard  to 
starboard,  we  followed  the  roll.  Thus  we 
kept  ourselves  in  harmony  with  the  steam- 
er's actions,  and  found  enjoyment  in  the 
wild  commotion,  as  well  as  an  assurance 
that  — 

"A  life  on  the  ocean  wave, 
A  home  on  the  rolling  deep," 

can  bring  upon  us  no  discomforts. 

Unfortunately,  all  our  fellow  passengers 
were  not  so  happy  as  we  were.  Some  were 
feeding  Mother  Carey's  chickens;  others, 
who  were  sitting  in  silence,  with  closed 
eyes  and  pallid  faces,  showed  in  various 
ways  that  the  voyage  was  to  them  a  long 
period  of  misery.  One  suffering  woman 
preferred  to  lie  prostrate  on  the  deck. 
5 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

Could  she  have  spoken,  her  thought  would 
have  been  found  in  the  words  of  old  Gon- 
zalo  in  "The  Tempest,"  — 

"  Now  would  I  give  a  thousand  furlongs  of  sea  for  an 
acre  of  barren  ground  !  " 

When  the  steamer  arrived  at  Nantucket, 
many  people  were  on  the  wharf  awaiting 
her;  not  because  they  were  interested  in 
anything  that  she  brought,  but  in  pur- 
suance of  an  old  custom  to  go  down  and 
look  at  every  arrival  from  the  sea.  That 
is  something  for  idlers  on  an  island  to  do. 
They  told  us  that  the  steamer  had  not 
been  expected  to  make  the  voyage  until 
the  gale  had  blown  itself  out. 

We  spent  the  remainder  of  the  day  at 
our  comfortable  inn.  The  throng  of  guests 
which  filled  it  to  overflowing  in  July  and 
August  had  gone;  a  few  had  come  to 
enjoy  the  September  days. 

To  refresh  our  memories  concerning 
the  history  of  Nantucket,  one  of  us  read 
6 


A  Voyage  to  the  Island 

aloud  a  narrative  of  its  settlement,  of  its 
sea-rovers,  and  of  the  great  power  which 
the  Quaker  Society  formerly  exercised 
over  the  social  and  civil  affairs  of  the 
island.  If  there  are  now  any  members  of 
that  sect  on  Nantucket,  they  speak  low 
and  go  quietly  their  own  ways.  Some- 
times there  is  heard  a  discussion  whether 
the  Society  is  decaying  elsewhere;  and 
occasionally  a  statistician  attempts  to  fig- 
ure out  whether  its  members,  by  reason  of 
a  devotion  to  quietism,  live  longer  than 
other  people.  Their  small  and  well-gov- 
erned communities,  existing  in  various 
parts  of  the  country,  as  well  as  in  Eng- 
land, give  no  serious  thought  to  such  in- 
quiries. They  pursue  the  even  tenor  of 
their  way,  conscious  of  the  fact  that  the 
past  influence  of  Quakerism  can  never  be 
revived. 


Old  Windmills  and  Young 
Women 


SECOND  DAY 


Old  Windmills  and  Toung  Women 

We  spent  this  sunny 
forenoon  on  a  hilltop 
west  of  the  town,  where 
stands  a  windmill  that  began  to  grind 
"  the  towne's  corne  "  in  the  year  1  746.  It 
is  the  most  interesting  remembrancer  of 
colonial  times  that  Nantucket  can  show  to 
its  visitors.  The  structure  resembles  the 
windmills  which  Thoreau  saw  on  Cape 
Cod  fifty  years  ago,  —  a  tall,  octagonal 
tower,  shingled  on  its  roof  and  sides;  a 
long  timber  slanting  from  its  top  towards 
the  ground,  the  lower  end  of  it  resting  in 
the  hub  of  a  cart-wheel  by  which  the  arms 
that  move  the  grinding  machinery  are 
turned  to  face  the  wind  when  the  grinding 
is  to  begin. 

The  mill  door  was  open.    Within  it 
ii 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

sat  the  keeper,  a  gentle  old  man,  who,  it 
pleased  us  to  imagine,  is  a  lineal  descend- 
ant of  the  first  miller.  He  sat  near  the 
door,  as  if  waiting  for  corn  to  be  brought 
from  the  town,  that  he  might  earn  the 
multure,  paid  in  colonial  times,  of  "two 
quarts  for  every  bushel  he  grindeth."  It 
was  a  reminder  of  Don  Quixote's  "  thirty 
or  forty  windmills  all  together,"  when  he 
told  us  that  "  once  there  were  four  wind- 
mills all  together "  whirling  sixteen  giant 
arms  in  the  wind.  Standing  on  an  eleva- 
tion of  sixty  feet  above  the  sea  level,  those 
arms  were  the  first  landmarks  to  be  seen 
from  a  ship  approaching  the  island,  and 
the  last  to  fade  from  the  sight  of  whale- 
men outward  bound.  "  I  must  tell  you," 
said  the  keeper,  "  that  no  Nantucket  man 
or  boy  returning  home  from  a  long  voyage 
could  come  in  sight  of  those  windmills 
without  feeling  his  eyes  considerably  wet. 
I  've  been  there  myself; "  and  the  gentle  old 
man  wiped  his  eyes  as  if  he  were  there  now. 

12 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

We  can  imagine  the  story :  The  ship 
has  been  cruising  three  or  four  years,  and 
for  a  long  time  its  company  has  been 
without  news  from  Nantucket.  When 
she  comes  within  sight  of  the  windmills, 
and  her  signal  flags  are  read  on  shore,  and 
her  name  is  known,  and  town  boys  are 
striving  to  earn  the  fee  of  a  silver  dollar 
by  being  the  first  to  report  the  arrival  to 
families  who  have  relatives  on  board,  and 
a  boat  is  rowed  from  the  harbor  to  meet 
the  ship  when  she  comes  to  an  anchor 
outside  the  bar,  and  to  ask  if  all  her  com- 
pany are  living,  or  who  is  dead,  it  may  be 
believed  that  a  wave  of  emotion  runs 
through  the  town  as  well  as  through  the 
ship.  There  was  a  time  when  such  occur- 
rences were  frequent  at  Nantucket. 

Tarrying  on  the  hilltop,  we  surveyed  the 
prospect  which  extends  beyond  the  town, 
beyond  green  fields,  and  far  away  over  the 
ocean.  How  solitary  appeared  the  posi- 
tion of  the  island.  A  visitor  to  the  town 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

sixty  years  ago  would  have  noticed  busy 
scenes  surrounding  many  vessels  moored 
at  the  wharves.  To-day  there  is  not  a  ship 
in  the  harbor,  nor  a  ship  anchored  at  the 
bar,  nor  a  ship  in  sight  on  the  surrounding 
sea ;  there  is  not  a  sheep  grazing  in  fields 
where  once  the  flocks  were  numbered  by 
thousands ;  there  is  not  a  sound  of  labor 
in  the  town,  which  was  once  a  hive  of  in- 
dustry, where  coopers,  sail-makers,  spar- 
makers,  boat-builders,  rope  walks,  forges, 
candle  factories,  were  at  work  the  livelong 
day,  with  no  lull  in  their  noises  except 
when  the  steeple  bell  summoned  every- 
body home  to  dinner. 

While  men  made  the  industrial  noises 
of  the  town,  women  were  numerous  enough 
to  make  its  opinions.  They  always  out- 
numbered the  men,  and  this  disparity  in 
numbers  increased  when  the  whale-ships 
sailed  on  long  voyages  farther  and  farther 
from  Nantucket.  Immediately  after  the 
Revolution,  they  were  cruising  as  far  south 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

of  the  equator  as  the  Falkland  Islands. 
The  ships  were  small,  not  exceeding  two 
hundred  and  fifty  tons  burden,  dull  sailers, 
and  scantily  outfitted.  Some  of  the  car- 
goes were  carried  direct  to  London  for  a 
market,  and  were  of  large  value,  such  as 
that  of  a  ship  commanded  by  Ransom 
Jones,  which  carried  7000  barrels  of  oil 
and  70,000  sealskins.  When  the  news 
reached  Nantucket,  about  the  year  1789, 
that  a  packet  of  the  East  India  Company, 
homeward  bound  to  London,  had  seen 
sperm  whales  off  the  coast  of  Madagascar, 
two  ships,  that  had  just  returned  from 
Greenland,  were  immediately  fitted  out  for 
what  was  called  "  a  voyage  of  discovery  in 
the  Indian  Ocean."  *  These  were  the  first 
Nantucket  ships  that  sailed  beyond  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope.  A  few  years  later 
Nantucket  ships  were  hunting  their  gigan- 
tic game  in  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

1  Ship  Penelope,   Captain  James  Whippey  ;   Ship 
Canton,  Captain  John  Worth. 

15 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

During  the  absence  of  many  men  on 
these  long  voyages  the  streets  of  the  town 
had  an  air  of  desolation,  which  was  not 
dispelled  by  the  visiting  activities  of  the 
women  who,  clothed  in  plain  gowns  of 
sombre  colors,  passed  to  and  fro,  seeking 
company  and  a  "  dish  of  tea "  in  their 
neighbors'  homes. 

At  this  period  the  town  contained  one 
dwelling-house  built  of  brick,  and  five  hun- 
dred and  thirty  houses  built  of  wood  ;  they 
were  plain  without  and  within,  represent- 
ing the  simple  architectural  ideas  of  a  sea- 
going people.  Many  of  the  houses  stood 
on  top  of  the  hill  which  slopes  up  from  the 
edge  of  the  harbor.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill 
were  three  wharves,  each  a  hundred  feet 
long ;  when  ships  returned  from  successful 
voyages,  there  was  a  great  bustle  of  business 
on  the  landing-place  at  the  head  of  the 
wharves.  Here  barrels  of  whale  oil  were 
stored,  in  readiness  for  shipment  to  a  mar- 
ket in  Boston  or  London ;  and  the  smell  of 
16 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

oil  became  the  all-pervading  odor  of  the 
town.  Between  the  landing-place  and  the 
top  of  the  hill  was  the  town's  meadow,  sur- 
rounded by  a  fence ;  within  it  the  herds  of 
cows  were  kept  after  they  had  been  driven 
in  from  the  pastures  at  sundown.  The 
streets  were  in  no  wise  picturesque.  They 
were  lanes  of  sand,  without  names,  without 
pavements,  without  footpaths,  and  were 
never  lighted  at  night.  Although  the  town 
was  a  great  warehouse  of  illuminating  oil, 
the  Quaker  merchants  who  owned  it  re- 
fused, year  after  year,  to  sell  it  for  street 
lights,  because,  as  they  said,  the  price  of 
oil  is  either  high  or  low ;  if  high,  the  select- 
men of  the  town  must  not  increase  our 
taxes  by  buying  it;  if  low,  the  owners 
cannot  afford  to  sell  it. 

When  the  women  were  not  going  on 
their  incessant  visits  afoot,  they  rode  in  two- 
wheeled  horse-carts,  over  which  a  canvas 
awning  was  sometimes  stretched.  This 
vehicle,  called  a  calash,  was  the  only  form 
17 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

of  carriage  on  the  island,  until  two  wealthy 
Quakers,  persuaded  by  their  young  people, 
ordered  each  a  fashionable  chaise  from 
Boston.  Any  unnecessary  expenditure  of 
money  was  an  immorality  in  the  Quaker 
view  of  life,  and  therefore  when  those  bril- 
liant vehicles  appeared  in  the  streets  the 
community  was  alarmed,  and  the  ruin  of 
the  families  of  the  importers  was  predicted. 
One  man  repented  and  sent  his  chaise  back 
to  Boston.  The  other  repented  not,  but 
used  his  chaise  until  the  townspeople  be- 
came accustomed  to  it,  when  some  of  them 
sent  orders  to  Boston  for  the  same  novel 
vehicle. 

The  disparity  of  numbers  between  the 
sexes  made  a  young  woman's  chances  of 
marriage  in  Nantucket  far  from  even. 
Beaux  were  scarce,  as  they  were  in  every 
seaport  town.  The  scarcity  is  mentioned 
in  a  letter  from  Elizabeth  Rotch  to  her 
cousin  Sarah  Hazard,  visiting  in  New 
York :  "  I  am  surprised  to  hear  thee  com- 
18 


Old  Windmills  and  Toting  Women 

plain  of  beaus  being  scarce  in  New  York, 
for  I  always  had  the  idea  they  were  very 
plenty ;  perhaps  it  is  of  the  younger  class, 
as  they  must  be  somewhat  advanced  be- 
fore they  merit  that  appellation.  Well, 
thee  will  find  more  of  a  scarcity  on  thy 
return." 

If  a  Quaker  girl  of  Nantucket  married 
a  Gentile,  she  was  disowned  by  the  Society 
unless  she  wrote  a  confession  of  repentance 
for  doing  what  some  of  them  said  was  the 
best  act  of  their  lives.  The  reality  of  the 
Quaker  religion  was  such  a  great  fact  that 
managers  of  the  Society  did  not  hesitate  to 
ignore  the  plainest  truths  about  human  na- 
ture by  punishing  both  men  and  women 
who  married  out  of  the  sect.  Members  of 
the  Society  were  "  set  aside  "  if  they  merely 
witnessed  the  marriage  of  an  acquaintance 
who  was  not  a  Quaker.  It  was  their  com- 
mon practice  to  attend  such  marriages  and 
absent  themselves  from  the  room  during 
the  performance  of  the  ceremony.  In  one 
19 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

instance  of  record,  more  than  thirty  Quaker 
guests  left  the  room  and  returned  after  the 
ceremony,  in  order  not  to  witness  it  and 
make  themselves  liable  to  discipline. 

But  the  Society  did  an  act  of  justice  to 
its  women  when  it  disowned  Silas  Ray, 
who,  turning  his  back  to  the  pretty  girls 
of  Nantucket,  had  "  gone  out  in  marriage 
with  a  woman  in  New  Jersey."  And  yet 
he  may  not  have  deserved  that  treatment; 
for  those  scientific  persons  who  have  stud- 
ied the  physiography  and  botany  of  Nan- 
tucket are  positive  that  these  things  prove 
the  island  to  be  a  portion  of  New  Jersey 
thrust  up  from  the  ocean. 

What  did  young  women  do  to  pass 
away  the  time  when  the  young  men  were 
absent  on  whaling  voyages  ? 

There  was  but  little  of  "  the  soft  play 
of  life "  in  their  experience.  Music  and 
dancing  were  forbidden  pleasures.  But 
as  the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  so 
the  love  of  those  pleasures,  born  in  the 
20 


Old  Windmills  and  Toung  Women 

hearts  of  Quaker  maidens,  declared  itself 
in  spite  of  the  Book  of  Discipline,  and 
found  vent  in  the  homes  of  Gentile  neigh- 
bors. When  they  were  suspected  of  such 
acts,  the  selectmen  of  the  town  appointed 
night-watchmen  "  to  suppress  "  what  they 
called  "  the  growing  disorder  of  the  young 
people  that  act  inconsistently  with  the 
principles  of  morality  and  virtue."  * 

Some  traded  in  small  wares ;  taught,  for 
the  wage  of  sixteen  cents  per  week  for 
each  pupil,  in  the  excellent  schools  of  the 
Quaker  Society,  whose  children  were  edu- 
cated apart  from  the  children  of  "the 
world's  people."  They  wove  flax  and 
wool  cloths  for  home  use  and  for  barter ; 
and  occasionally  they  rode  in  their  ca- 

1  The  Gentiles  were  members  of  the  sects  (other  than 
Quakers)  mentioned  in  this  paragraph  from  the  Diary  of 
President  Stiles  of  Yale  College  :  "  July  3ist,  1772.  Mr. 
Shaw  tells  me  Nantucket  contains  no  Baptists,  4  or  5  Fam- 
ilies Churchmen,  and  150  to  170  Families  Congregational- 
ists,  the  rest  Quakers  and  Nothings.  There  is  no  Episcopal 
Church,  one  Quaker  Meeting,  only  one  Congregational  of 
which  Mr.  Shaw  is  Pastor." 

21 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

lashes  to  Palpus  (now  known  as  Polpis), 
attracted  by  its  house  of  entertainment 
which  stood  near  the  shore  of  the  upper 
harbor,  three  or  four  miles  from  town. 
There,  says  a  traveler  who  visited  Nan- 
tucket  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  they  have  the  pleasure  of  "  throw- 
ing the  bar,  of  heaving  stones,  etc."  He 
also  says :  "  By  resorting  to  that  place  they 
enjoy  a  change  of  air,  they  taste  the  plea- 
sures of  exercise ;  perhaps  an  exhilarating 
bowl,  not  at  all  improper  in  this  climate. 
I  was  once  invited  to  that  house,  and  had 
the  satisfaction  of  conducting  thither  one 
of  the  many  beauties  of  the  island  (for  it 
abounds  with  handsome  women)  dressed 
in  all  the  bewitching  attire  of  the  most 
charming  simplicity;  like  the  rest  of  the 
company  she  was  cheerful  without  loud 
laughs,  and  smiling  without  affectation. 
I  had  never  before  in  my  life  seen  so 
much  unaffected  mirth  mixed  with  so 
much  modesty.  The  pleasures  of  the  day 

22 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

were  enjoyed  with  the  greatest  liveliness 
and  the  most  innocent  freedom,  without 
a  fiddle,  or  a  dance.  We  returned  as 
happy  as  we  went,  and  the  brightness  of 
the  moon  kindly  lengthened  a  day  which 
had  passed  with  singular  rapidity." 

Women,  whose  husbands  and  lovers 
were  at  sea,  became  naturally  interested  in 
marine  matters  and  in  the  details  of  voy- 
ages. At  neighborhood  gatherings  they 
were  entertained  by  stories  of  adventure 
or  descriptions  of  strange  lands  and  peo- 
ple, which  young  men  narrated  after  their 
return  from  sea.  One  tells  of  a  tropical 
island  inhabited  only  by  men ;  never  was 
a  woman  permitted  to  land  on  it.  He 
tells  how  happy  he  feels  that  it  is  not  so 
on  their  own  island,  and  says  there  are  no 
girls  so  lovely  as  the  girls  of  Nantucket. 
If  we  may  trust  the  opinion  of  travelers, 
they  were  not  like  the  "  nice  "  girls  of 
modern  novelists,  who  are  described  in  the 
nursery  jingle  as  made  of  "  sugar  and  spice 
23 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

and  all  that 's  nice ; "  there  was  in  the  typi- 
cal Nantucket  girl  a  robustness  of  charac- 
ter, a  gentle  independence,  an  out-of-door 
freshness,  which  contrasted  sharply  with 
the  sober  mannerisms  that  surrounded  her, 
through  which  she  occasionally  broke,  as 
the  island  roses  broke  through  garden 
fences. 

There  were  visits  to  the  Market  Place, 
which,  like  a  London  Coffee  House  of  the 
olden  time,  was  a  place  to  meet  acquaint- 
ances, also  to  hear  what  news  had  come 
from  ships  at  sea,  to  make  bargains,  to 
learn  the  price  of  oil  in  Boston,  and  what 
was  going  on  in  the  town.  In  this  mar- 
ket there  were  dealings  for  shares  in  whal- 
ing voyages;  some  of  these  are  recorded 
in  the  book  of  George  Gardner,  who  had 
retired  from  the  quarter-deck  of  a  whale- 
ship  to  the  armchair  of  a  justice  of  the 
peace.  For  example :  — 

"Nantucket  10  October,  1775.  For 
thirteen  pounds  six  shillings  lawful  money 


UNIVERSITY    ) 

OF  / 

Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

to  me  in  hand  paid  by  William  Coffin, 
perukemaker,  I  do  bargain  and  sell  to 
him  the  whole  of  my  voyage  which  I  shall 
obtain  on  board  the  brigantine  Beaver, 
Hezekiah  Coffin  master,  bound  to  the 
coast  of  Brazil  or  elsewhere.  —  ALEXANDER 
HAY." 

"Nantucket  28  October,  1775.  For 
thirty-six  shillings  lawful  money  to  me  in 
hand  paid  by  William  Coffin  peruke- 
maker  I  do  bargain  and  sell  to  him  the 
one-eighth  part  of  my  voyage  which  I 
shall  obtain  on  board  the  brigantine  Bea- 
ver, Capt.  Hezekiah  Coffin  bound  to  the 
Brazils  or  elsewhere.  —  EBENEZER  DOANE." 

In  the  Market  Place  were  posted  the 
arrival  of  vessels  at  the  port  and  their 
departure.  For  example :  — 

"July  ist,  1782.  Robert  Spencer  mas- 
ter of  sloop  Nancy,  burthen  18  tons,  navi- 
gated with  2  men,  mounted  with  no  guns, 
has  permission  to  depart  from  this  port 
with  300  of  Beef  for  Swanzey. 

25 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

"December  2oth,  1782.  Reuben Macy 
master  of  brigantine  Desire,  130  tons,  has 
permission  to  take  on  board  a  cargo  of 
Oyl  for  Ostend. 

"  February  i  st,  1 783.  Christopher  Gard- 
ner master  of  the  sloop  Fox,  30  tons,  nav- 
igated with  four  men  has  permission  to 
depart  for  Surinam  with  17  casks  To- 
bacco, 70  Quintals  Fish,  7  casks  Oyl,  7 
boxes  Sperm  Candles,  125  Shocks,  600 
of  Heading,  4  barrels  Tar,  Some  Oars, 
i  bbl  Pickel  Fish. 

"February  25th,  1783.  James  Bartlett 
master  of  the  schooner  Hamilton,  15  tons 
burthen,  has  arrived  from  Machias  with 
240  bushels  Salt,  4  bbls  Oyl,  2  casks  Sam- 
mon,  i  box  Pipes,  4  reams  Paper,  40  wt 
Tea,  70  wt  Pepper,  1000  Boards. 

"May  3 1st,  1783.  William  Moores, 
master  of  ship  Bedford,  has  arrived  from 
London." 

All  these  things,  trifling  as  they  may 
appear  to-day,  were  of  some  importance 
26 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

to  the  women  who  were  representing  a 
majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  island ; 
but  they  were  not  sufficient  to  destroy  the 
monotony  of  their  social  life,  caused  by 
the  absence  of  men  at  sea  and  the  pro- 
hibition of  enjoyments  in  music  and  dan- 
cing. The  "  opium  habit "  was  a  natural 
result.  The  visitor  to  Nantucket,  whom 
we  have  already  quoted  as  a  guest  at  Pal- 
pus, says :  "  A  singular  custom  prevails 
here  among  the  women  at  which  I  was 
greatly  surprised.  They  have  adopted 
these  many  years  the  Asiatic  custom  of 
taking  a  dose  of  opium  every  morning, 
and  so  deeply  rooted  is  it  that  they  would 
be  at  a  loss  how  to  live  without  this  indul- 
gence ;  they  would  rather  be  deprived  of 
any  necessary  than  forego  their  favorite 
luxury." 

The  influences  of  the  Revolution  caused 
a  change  to  come  over  the  orderly  char- 
acter of  Nantucket,  and  a  degeneracy  in 
the  quality  of  its  social  life.     Taxes  had 
27 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

been  paid  for  the  support  of  schools  and 
the  poor ;  but  not  a  penny  had  ever  been 
levied  to  maintain  a  police  force,  or  to 
light  the  streets  at  night ;  and  the  Quaker 
inhabitants  had  no  intention  to  change 
their  parsimonious  economy.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  tumultuous  assemblies 
and  riotous  acts  were  of  frequent  occur- 
rence, with  a  disregard  of  private  rights 
such  as  is  likely  to  prevail  in  any  seaport 
town  when  there  is  no  police  force  to  pre- 
serve order.  Two  instances  recorded  by 
a  Justice  of  the  Peace  illustrate  the  law- 
lessness of  the  town :  — 

"February  14th,  1783.  George  Gracie 
a  Merchant  entered  Complaint  against 
one  John  Bean  a  Merchant  for  insulting 
&  threatening  to  take  his  Life.  Upon 
examination  pleads  Guilty.  Judgment  is 
that  sd  John  Bean  find  sureties  to  keep 
the  Peace  &  pay  Cost  of  Court  &  be 
committed  till  Judgment  is  perform'd. 
Costs  15/5." 

28 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

"August  23d,  1783.  Obed  Hussey 
Esqre  complained  of  Aaron  Ralph  an  In- 
dian for  assaulting  &  striking  him.  Judg- 
ment is  that  sd  Aaron  pay  a  fine  of  10 
shillings  or  be  whipt  on  his  Naked  Back 
10  stripes,  pay  Cost  of  Court  &  be  com- 
mitted till  Judgment  is  perform'd.  Cost 
^2-8-9." 

A  letter  written  from  Nantucket  to  a 
Boston  weekly  journal  of  the  year  1820,  re- 
ferring to  those  times,  said :  "  Our  wharves 
and  streets  exhibited  groups  of  riotous 
boys,  and  even  the  yards  and  porches  of 
our  sanctuaries  were  profaned  by  their 
clamors  in  time  of  Divine  service." 

This  condition  of  affairs,  with  the  infer- 
tility of  the  soil  of  the  island,  its  inclem- 
ent winters,  the  superior  facilities  for 
prosecuting  the  whaling  business  offered 
by  the  deep  water  harbor  of  New  Bedford, 
were  motives  which  caused  several  fami- 
lies to  remove  from  the  island  before  the 
end  of  the  century.  Some  went  to  New 
29 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

Garden  in  North  Carolina,  a  settlement  be- 
gun before  the  Revolution  by  a  few  mem- 
bers of  the  Quaker  Society  who  had  been 
attracted  thither  by  reports  of  a  fertile 
land  and  a  mild  climate.  Laban  Mitchell, 
a  minister  of  the  Society,  visited  the 
homesick  exiles  at  New  Garden  ;  and  in 
a  letter  written  to  Mary  Barker,  of  Nan- 
tucket,  he  said :  "  We  seem  to  be  more 
than  a  thousand  miles  from  our  beloved 
island,  yet  the  regard  I  have  for  some 
there  is  not  abated,  of  which  number  thou 
art  one.  I  was  like  a  traveller  in  a  Wil- 
derness when  passing  thro'  Virginia  where 
Friends  had  almost  deserted  their  meet- 
ings. We  had  to  stop  at  Public  Houses 
&  be  waited  upon  by  slaves,  sometimes 
in  log  Houses  with  no  windows  &  no 
floor,  nor  separate  apartments,  tho'  the 
People  were  very  kind  and  thanked  us 
for  our  company.  We  are  now  at  New 
Garden  where  our  Unkles  &  Aunts,  Cou- 
sins &  Nantucket  friends  are.  We  are 
3° 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

viewing  them  in  their  Houses  &  partak- 
ing with  them  of  the  good  of  their  land. 
We  are  attending  their  Meetings  almost 
daily.  We  have  the  company  of  Chris- 
topher Anthony  who  has  travelled  much 
in  the  Ministry.  He  told  me  to  tell  the 
women  that  he  had  seen  the  close  trial 
they  had  been  brought  into  leaving  home. 
The  weather  here  is  quite  as  cold  as  it 
was  last  winter  at  Nantucket." 

Charity  Rodman,  23  years  of  age,  writ- 
ing to  her  sister  Anna  Hazard,  relates  the 
news,  gives  a  sketch  of  home  life,  refers  to 
a  change  of  social  conditions  in  Nantucket, 
and  expresses  a  hope  of  removal  to  New 
Bedford.  As  there  was  no  public  mail  to 
and  from  the  island,  letters  were  held  by 
the  writers  until  an  acquaintance  or  the 
captain  of  a  packet  was  to  depart  for  the 
place  to  which  they  were  addressed.  This 
letter  is  superscribed,  "favored  by  David 
Anthony."1 

1  The  Rodman  family  of  Nantucket  was  descended 
31 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

Nantucket,  2nd  mo.  22nd  day,  1780. 

I  am  now  about  performing  an  inten- 
tion that  has  for  some  time  been  mine  of 
giving  thee,  my  beloved  sister,  a  daily 
sketch  of  our  transactions,  such  I  mean  as 
are  worth  notice  or  render'd  so  by  the  inter- 
ested part  we  take  in  them.  I  think  it 
will  not  be  unpleasing  to  thee,  as  there  is 
scarcely  any  transaction  however  trivial 
but  what  conveys  to  the  congenial  mind 
a  secret  pleasure.  The  rain  prevented  the 
girls  from  going  to  meeting  to-day ;  we 
are  now  sitting  round  the  table  employ- 
ing the  pen,  which  is  indeed  an  agreea- 
ble resource  when  we  are  deprived  of 
others;  mama  is  reading  the  history  of 

from  John  Rodman,  a  Quaker  of  New  Ross,  Wexford 
County,  Ireland.  Rutty*  s  History  of  the  Quakers  in 
Ireland,  published  in  the  year  1751,  says  :  "In  the 
year  1655,  for  wearing  his  hat  in  the  Assizes  of  New 
Ross,  John  Rodman  was  committed  to  Gaol  by  the 
Judge,  kept  a  prisoner  three  months,  and  then  ban- 
ished that  country." 

32 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

England.  Jimmy  Robinson  came  over  in 
the  packet  yesterday  &  spent  last  evening 
with  us.  We  have  not  now  so  large  a  num- 
ber of  evening  visitors  as  in  years  past ; 
thou  wilt  naturally  conclude  the  alteration 
is  pleasing  to  us  all  since  there  is  so  little 
society  in  the  town  that  can  justly  be  num- 
ber'd  with  the  agreeables.  I  have  long 
thought  that  our  happiness  in  that  respect 
depended  upon  a  small  circle  of  sincere 
friends,  where  "heart  meets  heart,"  such 
as  I  hope  to  share  if  we  are  permitted 
to  form  one  neighborhood  &  reunite  our 
divided  family  at  New  Bedford. 

Nantucket,  2nd  mo.  24.th  day. 

Yesterday  was  a  snow  storm  which  con- 
tinued without  much  ceasation  till  near 
twelve  to-day.  I  began  to  spin  tow  for  the 
filler  of  our  towels ;  the  warp  is  nearly  ac- 
complished. Sister  Sally  join'd  me  in  the 
afternoon;  but  it  is  tedious  disagreeable 
business.  I  don't  like  it.  Isaac  Chase  spent 
33 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

the  evening  here  &  call'd  today  to  take  a 
letter  to  send  to  New  Bedford.  Hannah 
watched  last  night  with  Tom  Dennisses 
wife  who  lives  in  the  house  cousin  Nichols 
us'd  to ;  she  has  had  a  severe  turn  of  the 
Pleurisy  &  is  still  very  ill.  Mama  seems 
better,  so  well  as  to  go  about  and  card  the 
flax  for  us. 

Nantucket,  2nd  mo.  26th  day. 

This  day  and  yesterday  too  cold  to  spin. 
We  have  assisted  mama  in  preparing  the 
Carpet,  sewing  rags,  &c.  Jim  Robinson 
who  is  yet  I  believe  in  town  spent  the 
afternoon  here  yesterday  &  Bill  Miller 
evening  before  last.  Perhaps  thee  hast 
heard  me  mention  captain  Greene,  a  per- 
son that  Ben  Dockray  and  R.  Robinson 
have  sailed  with.  He  has  lately  married  I 
believe  a  Mumford  &  Jim  informed  us 
they  all  dined  at  cousin  Robinsons  yester- 
day; did  thee  ever  find  such  another 
family  —  people  that  they  are  under  no 
34 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

obligation  to,  then  to  take  in.  Several  of 
the  Barkers  from  New  York  are  in  town. 
Tom  &  Abraham  came  a  few  days  since 
&  we  hear  this  morning  by  Charles  that 
the  latter  unfortunately  fell  down  last  even- 
ing and  broke  his  leg  badly,  a  sorrowful 
circumstance  indeed.  I  can't  tell  in  what 
situation  the  poor  thing  was;  believe  he  was 
quite  sober,  but  he  will  be  hardly  Judged ; 
he  was  carried  into  Merchants  Tavern 
&  they  were  about  trying  to  carry  him  to 
Dr.  Huntinton's  sometime  to-day.  I  pity 
him  sincerely,  or  anybody  else  that  has 
need  of  Bonesetter  Sweet's  assistance.  But 
this  event  tho  sorrowful  is  not  so  alarm- 
ing as  one  that  has  lately  took  place ;  day 
before  yesterday  Christopher  Ellery  went 
home  to  drink  tea  after  which  he  took  a 
letter  from  his  pocket  &  while  reading  it 
fell  in  a  fainting  fit  almost  into  the  fire  & 
expired  before  any  assistance  could  be  pro- 
cured. The  ink  has  several  times  froze  in 
my  pen.  I  dont  know  that  thee  can  read 
35 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

it,  I  am  very  cold,  the  Girls  have  gone  to 
Meeting  &  I  must  go  &  clean  the  great 
room.  Farewell  my  dear  I  wish  thee  every 
happiness  thou  canst  receive.  My  love  & 
the  familys  attends  you  all. 

thy  C.  R. 

Elizabeth  Rotch,  wife  of  William 
Rotch,  Jr.,  writing  to  her  sister  Anna, 
wife  of  Thomas  Hazard,  Jr.,  living  in 
Providence,  alludes  to  the  changed  social 
condition  of  Nantucket,  and  mentions 
with  the  news  an  expectation  of  removing 
from  the  island :  — 

Nantucket,  $d.  mo.  26d.  1788. 

...  I  imagine  the  Society  thou  asso- 
ciates with  very  preferable  to  what  thy 
former  situation  here  subjected  thee  to,  and 
must  confess  the  company  of  ones  own 
connexions  affords  more  satisfaction  &  real 
comfort  than  we  can  expect  to  find  from 
any  other  source.  Thy  last  letter  is  of  so 
old  a  date  that  a  reply  would  be  quite  un- 
36 


Old  Windmills  and  Toung  Women 

seasonable  tho  the  contents  are  very  affec- 
tionate &  afforded  me  consolation  at  the 
receipt ;  it  was  at  the  time  my  dear  Wil- 
liam was  passing  the  disagreeable  opera- 
tion of  Small  Pox  which  he  was  greatly 
favored  in,  &  has  been  very  healthy  since 
his  return  home.1  We  have  not  yet  done 
anything  towards  removing  but  expect  we 
shall  get  away  some  time  next  month.  A 
melancholy  account  arrived  here  a  few  days 
since  that  a  Schooner  belonging  to  D. 
Starbuck  on  her  passage  home  from  Caro- 
lina was  lost  &  all  the  hands  perished,  the 
Captain  was  Ruebin  Coffin,  Mate  Jona- 
than Macy,  son  of  old  Jonathan,  they  have 
both  left  widows  &  little  Children  to 
Mourn  their  loss.  Ephraim  Congdon  was 
likewise  on  board.  The  unfortunate  Capt. 
Cole  (belonging  to  Clark  &  Nightingales 

1  The  "  Pest  House,"  to  which  persons  were  sent 
to  be  passed  through  a  course  of  smallpox,  was  situ- 
ated near  the  eastern  shore  of  the  harbor,  within  sight 
of  the  town. 

37 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

Brig)  I  feel  much  for  ;  he  is  a  person  of 
great  sensibility  &  is  extremely  wounded 
at  the  circumstance,  he  is  quite  agreeable 
in  his  behaviour  &  I  think  improves  upon 
acquaintance,  that  makes  me  the  more  de- 
sirous lenity  should  be  shown  him  by  his 
owners.  .  .  . 

An  allusion  to  the  disagreeable  change 
in  the  character  of  social  life  at  Nantucket 
appears  also  in  a  letter  of  the  year  1798 
from  Mary  Rodman  to  her  cousin  Sarah 
Hazard,  living  in  New  Bedford  :  — 


Nantucket,  2nd  Mo.,  l8th  day, 

Altho  the  intercourse  since  the  receipt 
of  thy  very  acceptable  letter  has  been 
much  interrupted,  yet  there  has  been  op- 
portunity when  I  might  have  answered  it 
if  I  cou'd  have  found  any  thing  worth 
writing,  and  I  seem  to  have  but  little  at 
this  time  but  if  I  cou'd  see  thee  I  shou'd 
have  much  to  say.  It  is  now  very  blus- 
38 


Old  Windmills  and  Toung  Women 

tering  weather  and  there  is  considerable 
Ice  in  the  harbour,  so  that  it 's  quite  un- 
certain when  the  packet  will  sail  for  New 
Bedford,  but  I  hope  she  will  soon  for  the 
time  has  nearly  arriv'd  that  we  shall  ex- 
pect my  dear  Father,  and  perhaps  the  next 
packet  may  restore  him  to  his  long  left 
family.  Were  we  in  New  Bedford  I  be- 
lieve the  time  would  pass  more  agreeable 
than  it  does  here,  and  if  we  move  and  go 
into  Matthew  Rowlands  house  it  will  be 
very  handy  to  yours,  which  will  be  very 
pleasing  to  me.  .  .  . 

The  four  windmills,  of  which  the  keeper 
on  the  hilltop  was  telling  us  this  morn- 
ing, were  used  during  the  war  of  1812  to 
telegraph  approaching  ships  that  British 
cruisers  were  near  the  island,  the  arms 
of  the  mills  pointing  to  the  direction  in 
which  cruisers  were  seen.  These  cruisers 
caused  severe  losses  to  Nantucket.  Its 
inhabitants,  when  petitioning  Congress,  in 
39 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

November,  1813,  for  relief,  said:  "A 
number  of  our  valuable  ships  with  full 
cargoes  of  oil  have  been  captured  and 
totally  lost;  and,  what  is  truly  lamenta- 
ble, several  of  the  owners  who  heretofore 
were  in  affluent  circumstances,  are  now 
reduced  to  indigence;  and  we  have  fur- 
ther to  anticipate  a  loss  of  fifteen  valuable 
ships  now  absent  in  the  whale  fishery." 
The  selectmen  had  stated  that  the  popula- 
tion of  the  island  numbered  nearly  seven 
thousand ;  but  Congress  left  the  people  to 
shift  for  themselves.  With  a  famine  in 
prospect,  they  applied  to  the  British  ad- 
miral for  aid.  When  he  learned  their  des- 
titute condition  and  peaceful  intentions,  he 
signed  permits  and  passes  for  their  vessels 
to  go  and  fetch  from  New  York  supplies  of 
firewood  and  provisions  on  condition  that 
they  should  not  share  his  favors  with  any 
of  their  countrymen  who  were  in  arms 
against  him.  The  contract  was  faithfully 
kept ;  a  British  frigate  anchored  in  the  bay ; 
40 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

its  barges,  flying  white  flags,  entered  the 
harbor  and  made  landings  at  the  wharves ; 
its  officers  walked  the  streets  of  the  town 
and  accepted  hospitality  from  some  of  the 
principal  families,  which  \#ere  acknow- 
ledged by  entertainments  aboard  the  ship. 
When  a  fight  occurred  near  the  island 
between  the  barges  and  an  American  pri- 
vateer, the  wounded  of  both  crews  were 
brought  to  Nantucket,  and  whatever  the 
people  could  do  for  them  was  done  with- 
out any  distinction  between  friend  and 
foe.  Among  the  wounded  were  two  mid- 
shipmen of  the  frigate,  who  were  made 
so  comfortable  by  the  family  into  whose 
hands  they  fell  that  they  were  not  eager 
to  recover  too  soon  and  be  recalled  to 
their  ship.  A  Nantucket  woman,  writing 
about  this  incident  several  years  after  its 
occurrence,  said  of  these  young  men: 
"They  were  permitted  to  enjoy  social 
intercourse  with  the  inhabitants,  and  ac- 
quaintances were  formed  by  them  which 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

time  and  change  probably  did  not  soon 
obliterate." 

The  inhabitants  of  Nantucket  were  de- 
voted to  the  principle  of  peace  with  all 
men,  so  long  as  the  influence  of  the 
Quaker  Society  prevailed.  Whenever  mil- 
itary companies  came  to  the  island  for  a 
holiday,  young  women  thronged  windows 
and  waved  handkerchiefs,  but  there  was 
no  rise  of  military  ambition  in  the  town. 
Once  a  coterie  of  young  men  formed  a 
training  company  and  sent  to  Boston  for 
equipments;  but  their  elders  compelled 
them  to  make  the  first  article  of  their  con- 
stitution to  read :  "  This  company  shall  be 
disbanded  immediately  in  case  of  war." 

While  war  was  destroying  the  whaling 
business,  the  people  turned  their  attention 
to  other  occupations.  A  letter  written  at 
Nantucket  in  May,  1813,  by  Gideon 
Gardner  to  his  sister  Mary,  living  in 
Rhode  Island,  says:  "Not  having  any- 
thing to  do,  the  fashion  of  business  has 
42 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

altered.  All  have  turned  farmers  except 
a  few  who  have  purchased  small  vessels 
to  bring  provisions  from  New  York.  Gil 
Swain  &  Dan  Hussey  arrived  a  few  days 
ago  with  Flour  &  Corn.  Others  are  gone 
&  going.  Flour  is  14  to  $15.  Corn  1.50. 
I  fear  many  will  have  no  money  to  buy 
with.  The  season  is  more  forward  than 
last  year,  and  the  grass  bids  fair  for  a  good 
hay  crop.  I  never  had  my  gardens  look 
so  well  as  they  do  now.  I  have  done  much 
work  on  them  myself,  so  much  that  my 
hand  writes  stiffly.  The  Brig  Ocean,  Capt. 
Absolam  Coffin,  has  been  captured  and 
carried  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  No 
news  from  any  of  our  Cape  Horn  ships. 
It  would  be  pleasing  to  me  to  have  a 
brisk  subject  to  make  my  letter  upon,  viz 
—  a  speedy  prospect  of  Peace,  and  our 
whale  ships  returning  with  good  voyages, 
but  we  must  be  content  with  our  Fate  and 
make  the  best  of  it" 

During   the   summer  of    1815,   when 
43 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

peace  had  returned,  two  lively  young 
women  from  Liverpool,  Nova  Scotia, 
voyaging  to  New  York,  tarried  at  Nan- 
tucket.  A  letter  written  by  one  of  them 
contains  their  opinions  of  the  town  and 
people.  The  writer  of  it  had  apparently 
been  sitting  in  a  corner  and  sighing,  like 
Beatrice  in  the  play,  "  Heigho  for  a  hus- 
band ! "  In  her  eyes  the  men  whom  she 
met  on  the  island  were  "  good  looking," 
the  women  "  uncommonly  homely." 

Nantucket,  August  25th,  1815. 

Friday  Morning,  Nine  O'  Clock. 

Here  we  are,  my  dear  Frances,  —  in 
the  Library  of  a  Presbyterian  Minister  at 
Mrs.  Careys  in  Nantucket  where  we  are 
very  pleasantly  situated,  after  an  uncom- 
mon fine  passage  with  very  little  Sea 
Sickness.  On  Wednesday  afternoon  we 
found  ourselves  alongside  the  Long- 
Wharf,  and  were  astonished  to  see  it  lined 
with  persons  of  all  descriptions  waiting  I 
44 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

suppose  the  appearance  of  the  Nova  Sco- 
tia Ladies  at  their  landing.  While  we 
were  preparing  to  debark  our  good  Cap- 
tain came  below  with  information  that  a 
chaise  would  be  ready  in  a  few  moments 
to  take  us  to  Lodgings.  Accordingly  in 
about  ten  minutes  the  ratling  of  wheels 
announced  its  approach  and  in  a  moment 
after  the  Capt.  appeared  at  the  Cabin  door 
and  presented  a  Young  Gentleman  hand- 
somely dressed  of  a  fine  countenance  and 
genteel  and  pleasing  address.  Judge  of 
our  Surprise  when  the  name  of  Mitchell 
was  announced,  for  it  was  no  other  than 
the  very  Mr.  Aaron  Mitchell  to  whom 
Mr.  G.  gave  us  the  Letter.  Oh!  my 
Dear  Girl  I  protest  my  Heart  has  received 
a  shock  of  which  it  will  not  easily  recover, 
for  Alas !  he  is  —  married.  But  to  return. 
We  immediately  followed  our  Conductor 
on  deck  and  found  his  own  chaise  and  ser- 
vant into  which  we  were  politely  handed 
by  Mr.  M.  and  another  Gentleman  with 
45 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

whose  name  I  am  unacquainted.  We 
drove  up  the  Wharf  and  through  several 
streets  and  was  at  length  set  down  at  our 
present  Lodgings  where  we  found  a  kind 
little  Woman  ready  to  pay  us  every  at- 
tention. Our  only  companion  is  the  Min- 
ister before  mentioned  who  is  a  young 
Man  about  thirty;  a  lucky  circumstance 
you  will  say  for  our  Lady  Matron  —  as 
you  are  well  acquainted  with  her  partiality 
for  Gentlemen  of  that  cloth.  Our  Land- 
lady informs  us  he  is  quite  studious  and 
his  countenance  confirms  her  assertion. 

This  Place  far  exceeds  any  idea  I  had 
ever  formed  of  it.  The  number  of  Inhab- 
itants amount  to  about  Eight  thousand, 
and  there  is  supposed  to  be  Seven  Hun- 
dred Men  now  employed  in  the  Whale 
Fisherys.  There  are  two  Meeting  Houses 
for  the  Friends,  two  Congregationalist, 
one  Presbyterian,  and  one  Methodist. 
As  we  have  learnt  the  Packet  will  not 
sail  for  New  York  until  Monday  I  shall 
46 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

be  able  to  give  you  a  more  particular  ac- 
count than  would  otherwise  have  been  in 
my  power.  Adieu  then,  until  afternoon 
when  I  hope  to  resume  my  pen  and 
communicate  something  more  concerning 
our  Charming  Aaron  Mitchell,  As  we  are 
momentarily  expecting  a  visit  from  him. 

Friday  afternoon.  Four  O'  Clock. 

Our  Friend  Mr.  M.  has  not  made  his 
appearance.  He  is  undoubtedly  engaged 
in  attending  to  the  discharge  of  the  Flora's 
Cargo  being  a  party  concerned  but  I  hope 
we  may  be  more  fortunate  tomorrow.  W^e 
have  just  returned  from  a  walk  through 
the  South  part  of  the  Town  in  which 
Mrs.  Carey  accompanied  us.  The  streets 
in  some  parts  are  narrow  but  the  Houses 
generally  have  an  appearance  of  neatness 
and  comfort.  Mr.  Mitchells  House  is  the 
most  elegant  brick  House  in  Town.  The 
soil  is  of  sand,  which  renders  walking 
quite  a  fatigueing  exercise.  But  I  think 
47 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

riding  must  be  very  pleasant.  During 
our  walk  I  in  vain  looked  for  Rocks  and 
really  felt  quite  disappointed  at  not  dis- 
covering those  Ornaments  of  my  dear 
native  soil.  I  am  just  summoned  to  Tea 
after  which  I  will  again  inform  you  of  all 
that  occurs  during  our  stay. 

Saturday  Morning,  Ten  O'  Clock. 

After  I  descended  last  evening  to  tea 
as  we  were  chatting  with  our  good  Land- 
lady a  Gentleman  entered  the  Room  of  a 
very  pleasing  appearance.  He  soon  en- 
tered into  conversation  at  once  easey  and 
polite,  and  before  we  parted  for  the  night 
we  were  all  equally  delighted  and  some 
half  in  Love  with  him.  He  appeared 
equally  Good  and  Amiable.  It  is  not 
in  my  power  to  mention  the  Variety  of 
Subjects  on  which  he  converses  with  the 
greatest  fluency,  but  they  were  all  calcu- 
lated to  improve  and  delight  us.  On 
enquiry  we  have  learnt  he  is  a  native  of 
48 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

Scotland  but  now  residing  at  Schenactady 
in  the  State  of  New  York,  Consequently 
we  shall  be  favoured  with  his  company 
in  our  passage  to  that  City.  He  appears 
about  thirty-six  years,  of  a  good  figure  and 
very  pleasing  manners,  and  of  the  most 
extensive  information  of  any  Gentleman 
I  have  ever  seen.  His  name  is  Mr.  Cul- 
ler and  is  a  Lawyer  by  profession.  Oh ! 
my  dear  Frances  why  are  we  not  favoured 
with  (at  least)  One  or  Two  such  Gen- 
tlemen*? What  an  invaluable  privilege 
would  their  Society  afford  us.  You  may 
perhaps  be  surprised  at  my  not  having 
said  more  of  our  minister.  But  to  say  the 
truth  he  is  very  much  enamoured  of  his 
Books.  He  keeps  an  Academy  for  the 
Instruction  of  the  Youth  of  both  Sexes 
and  only  preaches  occasionally. 

Sunday  Noon,  August  2fth,  1815. 
Just  returned  from  Church  where  we 
were   attended  by  our  Two  Gentlemen 
49 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

Mr.  Culler  and  Mr.  Pierce,  the  former  be- 
comes every  day  and  hour  more  interest- 
ing and  the  latter  is  much  more  agreeable. 
The  Minister  gave  us  a  Sermon  about 
twenty  minutes  long,  rather  dry,  his  name 
is  Swift  and  appears  quite  young.  The 
House  is  large  but  not  much  crowded. 
The  Singing  was  very  indifferent;  they 
have  a  handsome  clock  in  front  of  the 
Gallery  in  which  I  saw  no  person  except 
the  singers.  The  Ladies  here  are  all  un- 
commonly Homely  and  Ungenteel.  There 
are  some  tolerably  good  looking  Gentle- 
men, tho  not  many  of  them.  We  shall  not 
go  out  again  this  afternoon  as  Charlotte 
has  the  tooth  ache  and  it  is  quite  warm. 

We  are  at  present  in  a  very  unsettled 
manner  with  respect  to  writing  being 
obliged  to  borrow  Ink  from  the  Minister 
in  whose  Library  I  am  now  writing.  Don't 
fail  to  write  me  all  the  little  occurrences 
that  may  transpire  during  my  absence. 
Ever  yours,  MARY  ANN  HOPKINS. 
50 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

The  growth  of  Nantucket  after  the  war 
of  1812,  and  an  increase  in  its  population 
by  the  coming  of  new  residents  who  were 
not  Quakers,  did  not  reduce  the  disparity 
in  numbers  between  the  women  and  the 
men,  which  was  then  as  four  to  one. 
When,  in  June,  1834,  a  Congregational 
meeting-house  was  dedicated,  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Robbins,  of  Mattapoisett,  who 
officiated  at  the  ceremony,  wrote  in  his 
diary :  "  About  four-fifths  of  the  members 
of  this  church  are  females,  and  a  part  of 
the  men  are  at  sea."  A  minister  of  the 
town  spoke  of  a  shipmaster  who,  out  of 
his  forty-one  years,  had  spent  thirty-four 
years  on  the  ocean.  This  remark  caused 
a  woman  to  say :  "  I  have  been  married 
eleven  years,  and  all  the  times  my  hus- 
band has  been  at  home  since  our  marriage 
amount  to  three  hundred  and  sixty  days. 
He  has  been  gone  on  his  present  voyage 
fifteen  months;  two  years  must  elapse 
before  he  can  return,  and  when  he  comes 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

home  it  will  be  a  visit  of  a  few  months; 
then  he  will  sail  again  on  a  four  years' 


cruise." 


She  was  asked  how  many  letters  she 
wrote  to  her  husband  during  his  last 
voyage. 

She  replied :  "  I  know  the  value  of  let- 
ters ;  they  are  cool  water  to  a  thirsty  soul. 
I  wrote  a  hundred.  I  wrote  by  every 
ship  bound  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  from 
Nantucket  and  New  Bedford.  But  he 
did  n't  receive  all  my  letters.  Some  were 
brought  back  after  he  had  sailed  on  his 
present  voyage." 

About  this  time  there  was  a  bookstore 
in  the  town  advertising  Frederika  Bremer's 
"  celebrated  novels  translated  by  a  lady  of 
Boston,"  a  "Pictorial  Life  of  Napoleon," 
Audubon's  "  Birds  of  America,"  in  num- 
bers, "  Women  of  England,"  by  Mrs.  Ellis, 
and  other  books  now  long  out  of  vogue ; 
and  there  was  what  may  have  been  a  cir- 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

culating  library,  announced  in  these  words : 
"To  let,  five  hundred  interesting  books, 
sui  generis."  There  were  also  stores  adver- 
tising beaver  and  moleskin  hats ;  "  a  first 
rate  tailor  prepared  to  make  clothes  to  fit 
and  to  suit ; "  "  metalic  wigs,  metalic  tou- 
pers  and  all  kinds  of  goods  usually  found 
at  hairdressers ; "  aromatic  snuiF,  of  which 
the  buyer  is  assured  that  "  after  a  long 
day's  work  a  pinch  will  be  extremely  grate- 
ful ;  "  Leghorn  bonnets,  and  the  latest  fash- 
ions from  New  York ;  "  great  bargains 
and  low  prices."  At  last  there  came  from 
Boston  a  cab ;  attention  was  called  to  it 
by  an  advertisement  in  the  Nantucket 
semiweekly  newspaper  of  the  year  1843, 
by  which  the  importer  "  respectfully  in- 
forms the  citizens  of  Nantucket  that  he 
has  just  procured  an  elegant  Cab  to  which 
he  will  attach  a  steady  horse  and  hold 
them  in  readiness  at  all  hours  of  the  day 
or  night.  By  strict  attention  to  the  wishes 


53 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

of  patrons,  careful  driving,  and  moderate 
prices  he  hopes  to  receive  due  encourage- 
ment." 

This  solitary  vehicle  was  noticed  by  a 
Boston  newspaper  correspondent  of  July, 
1852,  who,  when  enumerating  the  carriage 
conveniences  of  the  town,  mentioned  "  one 
cab  at  least." 

The  appearance  of  the  town  at  this  time 
may  be  described  as  unattractive.  Nearly 
all  the  dwelling-houses  were  of  wood,  un- 
painted,  without  piazzas  and  ornaments; 
but  more  comfortable  within  than  they 
appeared  to  be  to  an  observer  without. 
Connected  with  them  were  gardens  which 
produced  abundant  growths  of  vegetables, 
currants,  strawberries,  gooseberries,  grapes, 
and  quinces.  Fruit  trees  could  not  with- 
stand the  salty  atmosphere  and  furious 
winds  of  winter,  which  sometimes  crept 
in  so  mildly  that  garden  flowers  bloomed 
in  December,  and  at  other  times  came 
with  storms  and  ice  floes,  preventing  com- 
54 


Old  Windmills  and  Toung  Women 

munications  with  the  mainland.  There 
were  a  few  double  dwelling-houses,  built 
of  brick,  containing  twelve  rooms,  but  the 
value  of  real  estate  was  so  low  that  the 
yearly  rent  of  such  houses  did  not  exceed 
one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  and  any 
two-story  wooden  house  in  the  best  part 
of  the  town  could  be  rented  for  seventy- 
five  dollars.  Waiting  for  guests  stood  the 
old-fashioned  tavern  with  its  comfortable 
porch,  its  tall  gate-posts  supporting  the 
jawbone  of  a  whale,  its  yard  gay  with 
hollyhocks  in  summer  time.  Only  the  prin- 
cipal streets  were  paved ;  others  were  the 
same  sandy  lanes  as  of  yore,  and  all  were 
destitute  of  trees  excepting  here  and  there 
a  solitary  willow,  or  horse-chestnut,  or  sil- 
ver-leaf poplar.  Thrice  a  week  the  slug- 
gish steamboat  Massachusetts,  Captain  Lot 
Phinney,  departed  for  New  Bedford,  and 
returned  on  the  intermediate  days,  wind 
and  weather  permitting.  Alongside  one 
of  the  decaying  wharves  were  the  remains 
55 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

of  the  old  marine  camels  which,  in  former 
years,  lifted  up  the  freighted  ships  bound 
from  Nantucket  to  distant  seas,  and  floated 
them  over  the  harbor  bar.  The  town  in 
all  its  parts  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  that 
new  birth  which  came  at  last  with  the 
summer  throng.  But  the  inhabitants  had 
their  own  resources  of  pleasure.  As  Quak- 
erism had  lost  its  influence,  and  other 
religious  sects  had  taken  its  place,  there 
were  dances  and  musical  concerts,  literary 
clubs,  sewing  bees,  whist  parties,  and  house 
parties,  under  the  management  of  wo- 
men who  were  in  fact  the  rulers  of  the 
town. 

Many  accounts  given  by  travelers  of 
their  visits  to  Nantucket  mention  the 
beauty  of  the  women  of  the  island. 
Their  beauty  and  their  intellectual  qual- 
ity are  referred  to  in  a  letter  written  by  an 
islander,  and  published  in  a  New  York 
newspaper  so  recently  as  the  year  1853. 
It  says :  "  As  there  is  a  great  preponder- 

56 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

ance  of  numbers  in  the  female  popula- 
tion here,  they  enjoy  great  freedom  and 
independence  and  are  on  the  average 
superior  to  the  men  in  intellectual  culture; 
moreover  they  have  no  lack  of  physical 
beauty." 

Beautiful  women  have  the  right  to  rank 
as  historical  personages;  but  those  of 
Nantucket  appear  to  have  escaped  the 
historian's  pen  until  the  Governor  of  Mas- 
sachusetts came  to  the  island  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1825,  bringing  with  him,  as  his 
aide-de-camp,  a  diarist.  In  those  days  a 
Governor  was  an  unusual  guest ;  no  such 
dignitary  had  previously  landed  on  Nan- 
tucket.  He  was  brought  ashore  from  the 
packet  sloop  in  a  whaleboat,  and  was  cor- 
dially received  by  many  of  the  principal 
citizens,  who  had  assembled  for  that  pur- 
pose. After  the  reception  they  escorted 
him  to  "  the  barber-shop "  to  inspect  a 
collection  of  South  Sea  curiosities  of  which 
the  barber  was  custodian.  Barber-shops 
57 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

were  central  places  of  resort  in  New  Eng- 
land towns;  a  writer  of  the  year  1817, 
who  was  interested  in  what  are  now  called 
Mayflower  Relics,  speaks  of  "sitting  in 
Gov.  Carver's  armchair  in  the  barber-shop 
at  Plymouth."  "  Then,"  says  the  diarist, 
"came  visits  to  the  whaleships  and  the 
spermacitti  works,  dinners,  and  evening 
receptions,  the  latter  being  graced  by  the 
presence  of  very  pretty  young  women." 
Saturday  morning  the  visitors  were  jolted 
to  Siasconset  in  horse-carts  to  eat  a  chow- 
der; and  on  Saturday  evening  an  enter- 
tainment was  arranged  for  the  Governor 
and  his  companions  by  Aaron  Mitchell 
in  his  elegant  mansion  on  North  Water 
Street,  corner  of  Sea  Street,  which,  with  its 
large  greenhouses  and  gardens,  was  the 
richest  homestead  in  the  town. 

This  entertainment,  without  music  and 
dancing  of  course,  was  said  to  be  "the 
finest  in  all  its  appointments  that  the  is- 
land had  ever  known."  The  aide-de- 

58 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

camp  was  there,  and  he  wrote  in  his  diary : 
"The  number  of  beautiful  and  lively 
young  women  impressed  me  as  exceed- 
ing anything  that  could  be  looked  for  in 
a  similar  gathering  upon  the  mainland, 
and  filled  me  with  regrets  that  we  were  to 
sail  at  daybreak.  I  was  expressing  my 
feelings  in  this  particular  to  a  bright  bevy 
of  these  girls  when  Hezekiah  Barnard 
suddenly  joined  our  group  and  put  in  this 
remark :  '  Friend,  if  thou  wishest  to  stay 
on  the  island  thou  hast  only  to  persuade 
one  of  these  young  women  to  put  a  black 
cat  under  a  tub  and  surely  there  would 
be  a  head  wind  to-morrow.'  The  young 
ladies  united  in  declaring  there  was  not 
a  black  cat  in  all  Nantucket,  they  having 
been  smothered  to  detain  husbands  and 
brothers  bound  for  the  southern  seas.  At 
last  Miss  Baxter,  the  prettiest  girl  in  the 
room,  confessed  to  the  possession  of  a 
black  kitten.  But  would  this  do  ?  A  ma- 
ture cat,  perhaps  two,  would  be  required 
59 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

to  keep  a  governor  from  sailing;  but  an 
aide-de-camp  could  certainly  be  kept  back 
by  a  kitten,  and  Miss  Baxter  had  only  to 
dismiss  the  governor  and  concentrate  her 
thoughts  upon  me  and  the  charm  would 
work." 

Next  morning  the  young  man  was 
called  up  by  his  host,  Barker  Burnell,  with 
the  words,  "  Wind  dead  ahead ! "  As  he 
could  not  leave  the  island,  and  it  was  Sun- 
day, he  went  to  the  Quaker  Meeting.  He 
sat  there  nearly  an  hour  in  absolute  silence, 
as  did  the  entire  assembly ;  and  the  silence 
seemed  to  him  to  be  favorable  for  reflec- 
tion and  devotional  feeling,  until  two 
women,  who  supposed  themselves  to  be 
"moved  by  the  Spirit,"  arose  and  ad- 
dressed the  meeting.  Then,  as  he  said, 
his  feelings  underwent  a  quick  revulsion. 

Was  Miss  Baxter  there  ? 

The  young  man's  diary  does  not  tell. 

He  sailed  away  on  Monday  morning. 
As  he  became  a  distinguished  citizen 
60 


Old  Windmills  and  Young  Women 

of  Boston,  the  story  of  his  evening  with 
Nantucket  girls  offers  a  fair  scope  for  those 
who,  like  Maud  Muller  and  the  judge,  are 
fond  of  ruminating  on  the  "  might  have 
been." 


61 


Old  Houses  and  Ghosts 


THIRD    DAY 


Old  Houses  and  Ghosts 


This  sunny  forenoon  we 
went  to  examine  an  old 
house  which  is  said  to  be 
the  oldest  house  on  the  island.  Jethro  Cof- 
fin built  it  in  the  year  1686,  when  he  was 
twenty-three  years  old  and  had  just  mar- 
ried Mary  Gardner,  a  child  of  sixteen  years. 
He  braced  the  frame  of  the  house  with 
ship  knees  so  that  winter  gales  should  not 
sag  it,  and  he  built  on  the  face  of  its  chim- 
ney a  brick  device  in  the  shape  of  a  horse- 
shoe, so  that  good  luck  should  come  to  it. 
But  this  token  has  not  saved  the  house 
from  "  decay's  effacing  fingers."  It  stands 
dilapidated  and  solitary  in  a  grassy  field,  — 

«'  Blistering  in  the  sun,  without  a  tree  or  vine 
To  cast  the  tremulous  shadow  of  its  leaves 
Across  the  curtainless  windows  ;  "  — 

65 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

and  in  all  its  details  it  reveals  the  hard 
features  of  a  time  when  men  and  women 
were  so  poor  that  they  were  compelled  to 
earn  their  living  by  continuous  labor.  The 
house  is  empty,  like  the  abandoned  shell 
of  the  chambered  nautilus ;  those  who  lived 
in  it  having  left  long  ago  their  "low- 
vaulted  past "  to  build  homes  in  some 
wider  sphere  of  life  than  any  that  existed 
on  Nantucket. 

As  a  specimen  of  a  dwelling-house  in 
colonial  times  it  is  uninteresting.  It  is 
partly  in  ruins,  it  is  small,  ungainly  in  pro- 
portions, and  hardly  worth  the  attention 
given  to  it.  In  Massachusetts  there  are 
more  than  fifty  old  colonial  dwelling- 
houses  which  are  interesting  in  architec- 
tural designs  and  historical  associations, 
and  some  are  now  the  homes  of  descend- 
ants of  the  men  who  built  them.  Of  such 
old  houses  the  Whittier  homestead  near 
Haverhill  may  be  mentioned  as  a  perfect 
memorial  of  colonial  home  life ;  the  birth- 
66 


Old  Houses  and  Ghosts 

place  of  him  who  was  by  excellence  the 
poet  laureate  of  New  England,  and  the 
scene  of  his  famous  "  Snow-Bound." 
The  visitor  enters  the  same  "old,  rude- 
furnished  room  "  whose  whitewashed  walls 

"  Burst  flower-like  into  rosy  bloom  "  — 

when  they  caught  the  first  gleam  of  the 
evening's  fire  on  the  andirons.  The  chairs 
are  there  in  which  the  persons  described  in 
the  poem  sat  during  that  winter  night,  and 
above  "  the  great  throat  of  the  chimney  " 
still  hangs  "  the  bull's-eyed  watch  "  that 

"  Pointed,  with  mutely  warning  sign, 
Its  black  hand  to  the  hour  of  nine." 

As  an  object  to  be  visited  and  studied, 
such  colonial  houses  are  more  valuable 
than  those  of  inferior  type,  like  the  Nan- 
tucket  house,  — 

"  Where  all  day  long  no  voice  is  ever  heard 

To  stir  the  spider  in  his  endless  care, 
Where  through  the  night  no  footsteps  ever  pass 
Over  the  splintered  floor  or  creaking  stair." 

67. 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

Nevertheless,  as  one  of  the  few  curiosities 
which  the  islanders  have  to  show,  it  re- 
ceives many  visits  from  summer  people. 
They  notice  a  little  opening  close  to  the 
front  door,  a  peephole  through  which  per- 
sons within  the  house  inspected  those  who 
knocked  on  the  door  for  admission ;  it  was 
especially  useful  to  ascertain  if  an  Indian 
caller  was  drunk,  for  drunkenness  was  the 
usual  condition  of  the  Indian  population 
of  Nantucket.  The  front  door  opens  into 
a  small  space.  On  the  right  hand  and  on 
the  left  are  doors  leading  into  large  rooms ; 
and  over  these  in  the  second  story  are  two 
similar  rooms,  reached  by  winding  stairs 
supported  against  the  chimney  around 
which  the  house  was  built.  The  ceilings 
are  low,  the  frame-posts  are  in  sight,  and 
the  fireplaces  are  wide  enough  to  receive 
cordwood  in  its  full  length. 

Some    country  houses    of   the   seven- 
teenth century  contained  secret  closets  and 
haunted  rooms,  as  described  in  the  ghost 
68 


Old  Houses  and  Ghosts 

story  told  by  Tennyson,  based  on  a  legend 
related  by  James  Russell  Lowell  of  a 
house,  near  the  place  where  he  lived,  which 
was  vexed  by  — 

"  A  footstep,  a  low  throbbing  in  the  walls, 
A  noise  of  falling  weights  that  never  fell, 
Weird  whispers,  bells  that  rang  without  a  hand, 
Door-handles  turned  when  none  was  at  the  door, 
And  bolted  doors  that  opened  of  themselves." 

Everybody  who  has  a  lingering  love  for 
the  marvelous  likes  to  see  these  places. 
Behind  the  chimney  of  Jethro's  house  was 
a  secret  closet  which  has  a  story  to  tell. 
One  day  when  he  was  absent,  and  his  wife 
and  baby  were  spending  an  afternoon  with 
a  neighbor,  a  drunken  Indian  entered  the 
house,  ascended  to  the  garret,  and  there 
fell  asleep.  At  midnight  he  awoke,  and 
while  moving  about  in  the  dark  garret  the 
floor  opened  and  he  dropped  into  the 
closet  below.  He  crept  out  into  an  adjoin- 
ing room  and  began  to  sharpen  his  knife 
on  the  hearthstones.  Mrs.  Jethro  was 
69 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

awakened  by  the  strange  noises,  and  seiz- 
ing her  babe  she  fled  across  the  fields  to 
her  father's  house  pursued  by  the  Indian ; 
but  as  nothing  tragical  occurred,  the  story 
is  not  so  thrilling  as  it  should  be. 

If  it  is  true,  as  Longfellow  has  said,  that 
"  all  houses  in  which  men  have  lived  and 
died  are  haunted  houses,"  it  is  also  true 
that  the  sound  of  a  knife  whetted  on  a 
hearthstone  may  be  heard  at  midnight  in 
this  ghostly  abode  of  the  past. 

After  going  through  the  barren  rooms 
of  this  house,  up  and  down  the  foot-worn 
stairs,  into  the  chilly  chamber  where  an 
old  fourpost  bedstead  gives  to  the  garru- 
lous attendant  authority  to  say  that  here 
was  the  boudoir  of  a  bride  more  than  two 
hundred  years  ago,  it  was  a  relief  to  get 
out  into  the  fresh  air  of  a  glorious  Sep- 
tember day.  We  sat  down  on  a  grassy 
slope  behind  the  old  house,  and  turned 
our  thoughts  away  from  the  narrow  and 


70 


Old  Houses  and  Ghosts 

cheerless  life  which  it  represents  to  the 
wider  and  brighter  life  that  now  is. 

There  is  another  old  house  in  the  town, 
but  it  is  not  shown  to  visitors.  Long  ago 
it  was  a  Quaker  meeting-house ;  and  some 
time  after  Quakerism  had  dissolved  into 
thin  air,  it  was  moved  to  a  foundation  on 
the  sand  behind  Brant  Point  Light ;  facing 
the  harbor  on  one  side  and  the  bay  on  the 
other,  making  a  trifling  blemish  on  the 
landscape.  Here  it  had  its  day  of  glory 
as  a  summer  hotel.  We  stood  on  the 
decayed  floor  of  its  piazza  and  looked 
through  the  uncurtained  and  broken  win- 
dows. On  the  office  counter  we  saw  the 
register  book ;  it  was  open ;  an  inkstand, 
a  water  pitcher,  and  tumbler  stood  near  it 
We  fancied  that  a  guest  had  just  arrived, 
registered  his  name,  drunk  a  tumbler  of 
ice  water,  and  gone  upstairs  with  the  office 
clerk  to  show  him  the  way  to  his  chamber. 
We  looked  into  the  dining-room;  we  saw 


71 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

the  tables  and  chairs  that  were  once  occu- 
pied by  summer  guests;  there  were  the 
decanters,  goblets,  and  napkins ;  but  no 
life  nor  sound.  It  appeared  as  if  the  house 
had  been  hastily  abandoned;  that  the 
ghosts  of  those  smooth-faced,  solemn-faced 
men  who,  seventy  years  ago,  were  speak- 
ing in  it  as  "  moved  by  the  Spirit,"  had 
suddenly  come  in  and  driven  out  the  dese- 
crators  of  their  ancient  sanctuary. 


Siasconset  and 

Sea  Worshipers 


FOURTH    DAY 


Siasconset  and  Sea  Worshipers 

This  morning,  in 
a  red-wheeled,  rub- 
ber-tired, runabout 
wagon,  we  started  to  make  our  first  journey 
on  the  island.  Leaving  the  town,  we  en- 
tered upon  a  straight,  hard,  smooth  high- 
way, recently  built  to  replace  the  sandy 
way  which,  for  more  than  a  century,  was 
one  of  the  cart  tracks  leading  to  Siascon- 
set. On  each  side  of  the  road  are  vast 
fields  of  rolling  land,  treeless,  unfenced, 
uncultivated,  and  yet  the  greenest  fields 
that  we  had  seen  for  many  a  day.  Out  of 
a  thicket  ran  a  bevy  of  quails,  crossing  the 
road  in  front  of  our  horse  and  showing 
no  fear,  as  if  the  mother  of  the  flock  had 
never  seen  a  gunner.  In  the  southern  dis- 
tance we  noticed  the  abandoned  buildings 
75 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

of  a  modern  farming  experiment,  and  be- 
yond them  we  caught  glimpses  of  the 
ocean.  As  we  approached  the  end  of  the 
road,  which  is  about  eight  miles  long, 
we  met  a  few  travelers  going  to  the  town, 
we  passed  a  golf-club  house,  and  a  wireless 
telegraph  station  which  communicates  with 
the  Nantucket  Shoals  lightship,  anchored 
below  the  southeastern  horizon  and  forty- 
one  miles  distant  from  the  island.  Then 
we  entered  a  sleepy  village  of  one  town- 
pump,  two  hotels,  and  many  inexpensive 
cottages,  which,  during  the  summer  sea- 
son, are  inhabited  by  families  from  all 
parts  of  the  mainland.  Cottages  stand 
along  the  edges  of  lanes  and  byways  which 
are  called  streets,  and  in  open  fields,  and 
are  clustered  on  elevations  that  overlook 
the  sea. 

Some  of  the  small  houses  built  long 
ago  for  the  use  of  fishermen  in  the  fishing 
seasons  are  also  occupied  by  summer  peo- 
ple. These  are  of  one  low  story  covered 


Siasconset  and  Sea  Worshipers 

by  a  broad  roof,  with  queerly  shaped  ex- 
tensions and  conspicuous  chimneys;  for 
fishermen  need  large  fires  in  winter  when 
gales  are  howling  over  the  island  and 
Siasconset  is  pelted  with  snow.  Land 
speculation  was  once  rife  along  this  fishing 
shore ;  customers  for  lots  and  cottages  were 
cried  for  in  New  York  and  Boston  as  if 
this  section  of  the  island  had  been  proved 
to  be  a  paradise  for  mankind.  New  loca- 
tions were  laid  out  and  given  meaningless 
names  that  indicate  a  poverty  in  nomen- 
clature not  to  be  expected  of  people  who 
enjoy  life  at  the  seaside.  The  ancient 
name  Siasconset  is  locally  appropriate ; 
but  it  seems  to  be  a  violation  of  what 
Fielding  called  "  the  eternal  fitness  of 
things "  to  give  the  name  Broadway  to  a 
silent,  sandy,  and  grassy  thoroughfare; 
and  the  name  Sunset  Heights  to  a  section 
of  land  facing  the  east,  while  the  sun 
continues  to  set  in  the  west.  Some  of 
the  cottages,  so  called,  resemble  comfort- 
77 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

able  shanties,  good  enough  for  a  vacation, 
and  some  stand  so  near  to  others  that  the 
occupants  may  occasionally  hear  from  all 
around  that  pathetic  plaint  described  by 
Wordsworth :  — 

"  An  infant  crying  in  the  night ; 
An  infant  crying  for  the  light ; 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 

The  attraction  of  Siasconset  is  a  long, 
wide,  sandy  beach  sloping  up  landward 
so  far  that  its  bluffs  are  beyond  reach  of 
an  ordinary  surf.  The  beach  faces  the 
rising  sun,  and  on  fair  summer  days  little 
awnings  are  stretched  over  it  and  par- 
asols are  blooming  on  it  like  poppies. 
Under  their  shades  lie  the  leisure-seeking 
people  who  live  in  the  hotels  and  cot- 
tages. There  they  were  when  we  arrived, 
lying  on  their  backs  along  the  sloping 
sands,  motionless  and  silent  as  those  only 
can  be  who  are  enjoying  contentment  and 
satisfaction  of  soul.  There  they  were  — 
matrons  and  maids,  young  men  and  gray- 

78 


Siasconset  and  Sea  Worshipers 

haired  men,  and  even  the  sleeping  babe  to 
whom  its  mother  sings :  — 

"  When  my  little  son  is  born,  on  a  sunny  summer 

morn, 
I'll  take  him  sleepin'   in  my  arms,  to  wake  beside 

the  sea; 
For  the  windy  waters  blue  would  be  dancin'  if  they 

knew, 
And    the  weeny  waves,   that   wet   the   sand,   come 

creepin*  up  to  me." 

We  hitched  our  horse  to  a  fence,  and 
hastened  down  the  beach,  to  join  the  pros- 
trate throng  of  worshipers  of  the  sea. 

Very  different  will  be  the  scene  when 
all  the  summer  people  have  gone.  Fish- 
ermen will  move  into  their  old  houses, 
send  their  children  to  the  village  school, 
and  renew  the  occupation  of  cod  fishing 
which  they  suspended  when  summer  be- 
gan. They  will  land  their  fish  on  the 
beach,  where  summer  people  were  wor- 
shiping the  sea ;  townspeople  will  occupy 
the  cottages  that  they  leased  during  the 
79 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

summer ;  savory  odors  of  fried  fish  and 
chowders  will  be  afloat  in  the  air,  and  the 
homespun  season  of  Siasconset  will  bloom 
until  Jack  Frost  comes  to  spend  the  win- 
ter with  the  fishermen. 

The  habits  and  customs  of  those  who 
live  at  Siasconset  in  summer  are  somewhat 
independent  of  forms  and  ceremonies. 
Sleeplessness  is  unknown.  Gayety  devel- 
ops itself  occasionally  in  a  dance  at  the 
village  casino;  but  as  gayety  does  not 
harmonize  with  repose,  there  is  probably 
no  more  of  it  now  than  there  was  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  when  Thomas  Coffin,  who 
kept  a  home  of  entertainment  on  the  bluff, 
was  "set  aside,"  or  expelled  from  the 
Quaker  society  of  Nantucket,  "  for  allow- 
ing a  company  of  young  people  to  dance 
in  his  house  at  Siasconset." 

"  When  I  went  to  Siasconset  some  years 

ago,"  said   my   comrade,  "there  was   no 

ocean  to  be  seen.  I  rode  across  the  dreary 

moorland  in  a  covered  wagon,  and  through 

80 


Siasconset  and  Sea  Worshipers 

a  dense  fog,  the  driver  tooting  his  way 
along  the  road  with  a  fishhorn,  as  if  he 
were  in  danger  of  collision  with  some 
vehicle.  As  we  neared  the  village,  he 
blew  his  horn  with  more  energetic  toots, 
summoning  the  villagers  to  hurry  out  to 
the  roadside  and  take  the  packages  that 
he  was  bringing  to  them  from  town.  I 
asked  him  to  let  me  blow  his  horn;  my 
blasts  were  so  feeble  that  he  chuckled  at 
my  efforts.  When  I  reached  the  village, 
the  fog  covered  the  ocean.  I  was  landed 
at  a  small  hotel  where  I  took  supper,  and 
as  the  landlady  had  no  vacant  room,  I  was 
sent  in  charge  of  a  guide  to  one  of  the 
fishermen's  houses  to  lodge.  Walking 
through  narrow  lanes  in  the  fog,  we  came 
suddenly  upon  what  appeared  to  be  a  tall 
woman  draped  in  white,  standing  in  a  yard. 

"'What  is  that?'  I  asked. 

"'That's  Wooden  Martha,'  said  the 
guide,  '  figurehead  of  a  ship  wrecked  on 
the  Shoals.' 

81 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

"  Near  by  was  the  house  to  which  I  had 
been  directed.  The  owner  of  it,  a  tall  fish- 
erman, received  me  as  he  stood  at  the  door 
in  blue  home-knit  stockings;  the  sleeves 
of  his  flannel  shirt  were  rolled  up  above  the 
elbows,  and  by  way  of  apology  he  told  me 
that  he  always  '  rolled  'em  up  in  June  and 
rolled  'em  down  in  October/  The  door 
opened  into  the  living-room,  where  his  wife, 
a  motherly-looking  woman,  was  seated  be- 
fore a  small  fire  on  the  hearthstone.  I  was 
glad  to  join  her,  for  the  night  was  damp 
and  chilly.  She  showed  me  to  a  little  bed- 
room, its  roof  sloping  down  to  two  half 
windows,  its  feather  bed  piled  up  with  com- 
fortables. I  asked  the  man  what  there  was 
to  be  seen  in  the  village.  He  replied : 
'  Well,  if  you  want  to  see  some  curious 
things,  they've  got  an  old  clock  and  a  splen- 
did silver  castor  and  Peregrine  White's 
silver  spoon  at  the  post-office.' 1  He  lighted 

1  The  £ os ton  News- Letter  printed,  in  July,  1 704, 
a  note  respecting  the  reputed    owner  of  this   silver 
82 


Siasconset  and  Sea  Worshipers 

a  lantern  and  led  the  way  through  lanes 
between  houses  like  his  own,  to  a  captain's 
house  where  I  saw  a  group  of  people  out- 
side a  window  at  which  stood  a  young 
woman  sorting  the  United  States  mail  out- 
spread on  a  table.  She  was  calling  aloud 
the  addresses  on  letters  and  papers,  and  as 
fast  as  her  calls  were  answered,  the  mail 
matter  was  handed  out  through  the  win- 
dow. I  found  her  to  be  an  interesting  per- 
son, a  daughter  of  the  captain,  and  she 
cheerfully  showed  me  many  old-fashioned 
things." 

"  How  many  years  ago  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Ah ! "  replied  my  comrade,  "  if  I  an- 
swer that,  the  next  question  will  be,  '  How 

spoon  :  «'  Capt.  Peregrine  White,  aged  eighty-three 
years  and  eight  months,  died  the  zoth  inst.  He  was 
vigorous  and  of  a  comly  aspect  to  the  last ;  was 
born  on  board  the  Mayflower,  in  Cape  Cod  Harbor, 
November,  1620  ;  was  in  the  former  part  of  his  life 
extravagant,  yet  was  much  reformed  in  his  last  years 
and  died  happily." 

83 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

old  are  you  ?  '  Do  you  know,  by  the  way, 
that  you  can  ride  to  Siasconset  in  a  rail- 
road car  that  travels  the  eight  miles  from 
town  in  forty  minutes  ?  " 

In  far  away  days  the  village  attracted  no 
summer  residents  from  the  mainland;  its 
summer  people  were  "the  principal  in- 
habitants of  Nantucket"  So  says  a  letter 
written  by  a  woman  of  the  island  in  the 
year  1846,  who  describes  the  place  as  "a 
little  fishing  village  a  few  miles  from  town 
called  by  the  Indian  name  of  Siasconset, 
the  resort  in  summer  of  many  of  the  prin- 
cipal inhabitants  of  Nantucket ;  to  them  a 
perfect  sans-souci^  not  from  its  elegance, 
for  the  houses  are  small,  of  one  story,  with 
something  like  defiance  of  all  rules  of  ar- 
chitecture. But  the  very  circumstance  of 
their  smallness  and  simple  construction 
affords  freedom  from  care ;  for  who  is  not 
aware  that  there  is  more  ease  and  comfort 
in  the  cot  than  in  the  palace,  particularly 
to  him  who  is  the  possessor  of  both  *? " 


Siasconset  and  Sea  Worshipers 

In  the  village  described  by  this  writer 
the  little  houses,  constructed  by  whimsical 
fishermen,  stood  on  the  grassy  edge  of  a 
cliff,  near  to  each  other  with  backs  to  the 
sea.  Westward  the  land  rose  to  an  eleva- 
tion that  shut  off  a  view  across  the  island, 
and  served  (so  Obed  Macy  wrote  in  the 
year  1835)  "as  a  barrier  to  the  cares  and 
bustle  of  a  turbulent  world."  The  village 
was  like  a  raree-show  to  newspaper  writers 
who  visited  it.  They  looked  at  the  little 
houses  as  children  look  at  toys,  but  were 
blind  to  the  neighboring  ocean  and  its 
"  league-long  roller "  thundering  on  the 
beach.  They  described  Siasconset  as  "a 
curiosity ; "  as  "  a  little  resort ; "  as  "  one 
of  the  lions ; "  as  "  a  place  where  there  is 
quite  a  number  of  funny  little  houses ; " 
and  one  who  had  a  misty  knowledge  of 
the  geographical  situation  wrote  to  a  Bos- 
ton newspaper  in  the  summer  of  1873 : 
"  Siasconset  is  a  funny  little  village  on  the 
ocean  side  of  the  island." 
85 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

More  appreciative  than  those  letter- 
writers  was  the  traveler  who  wrote  from 
Nantucket  about  the  year  1775,  when  six 
rude  huts,  erected  for  the  shelter  of  fisher- 
men in  winter,  formed  the  Siasconset  Vil- 
lage. He  saw  nothing  that  was  "  funny," 
but  everything  that  was  grand.  He  said  : 
"  I  found  the  huts  all  empty  except  that 
particular  one  to  which  I  had  been  directed. 
It  was,  like  the  others,  built  on  the  highest 
part  of  the  shore  in  the  face  of  the  ocean. 
Here  lived  a  single  family  without  a  neigh- 
bor. I  had  never  seen  a  spot  better  calcu- 
lated to  cherish  contemplative  ideas.  The 
ever  raging  ocean  was  all  that  presented 
itself  to  the  view  of  this  family ;  my  eyes 
were  involuntarily  directed  to  it,  my  ears 
were  stunned  with  the  roar  of  its  waves 
rolling  one  over  the  other  as  if  impelled  to 
overwhelm  the  spot  on  which  I  stood." 

As  it  was  then,  so  it  is  now.  The  magic 
of  the  sea  is  the  charming  power  of  Sias- 
conset. It  holds  the  observer  fast,  as  the 
86 


Siasconset  and  Sea  Worshipers 

Ancient  Mariner  held  the  wedding  guest. 
It  so  captivates  the  loungers  whom  we  saw 
lying  on  the  beach  that  many  of  them  will 
return  summer  after  summer  to  the  same 
enjoyment  of  indolence  and  day-dreams. 

When  a  strong  wind  is  blowing  out  of 
the  east,  great  waves  pursue  each  other  to- 
wards the  beach,  as  if  impatient  to  strike 
it  and  run  foaming  up  to  the  bluffs  before 
others  can  get  there.  But  many  days  there 
are  when  the  wind  and  the  sea  are  gentle, 
when  the  waves  follow  each  other  lazily  to 
the  shore,  and  tumble  wearily  upon  the 
sands  as  if  too  tired  to  go  further.  Then 
you  are  charmed  by  the  scene  as  you 
look  — 

"  Eastward,  still  eastward,  endlessly, 
At  the  sparkle  and  tremor  of  purple  sea 
That  rises  before  you  a  flickering  hill, 
On  and  on  to  the  shut  of  the  sky." 


OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY 

y 


Surf  side  and  "Tom  Never 


FIFTH     DAY 


Surf  side  and  Tom  Never 

This  morning  we  took 
our  red-wheeled,  rub- 
ber -  tired,  runabout 
wagon  for  a  ride  to  Surfside,  which  is  the 
name  given  to  a  range  of  sand  bluffs  on 
the  south  shore  of  the  island. 

As  soon  as  we  were  rid  of  the  town,  we 
entered  upon  a  soft  road,  winding  across 
a  vast  extent  of  level  and  unfenced  land 
which  is  covered  with  turf  and  adorned 
with  luxuriant  wild  flowers  of  various  col- 
ors, and  the  ruddy  fruit  of  wild  cranberry 
vines.  The  flora  of  the  island  is  so  rich 
and  various  that  we  cannot  avoid  noticing 
it  wherever  we  go.  By  reason  of  the  ab- 
sence of  trees  a  great  number  of  little 
flowering  plants  have  established  them- 
selves on  this  moorland,  where  they  are 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

developed   with   a    luxuriance   which   is 
never  attained  in  shaded  places. 

"  The  land  in  warm  September's  golden  hours 

Pours  forth  the  glory  of  the  waning  year  ; 
And,  far  as  sight  can  reach,  the  myriad  flowers, 

In  serried  ranks,  overspread  the  landscape  here. 
The  purple  aster,  and  the  golden-rod, 

Imperial  flowers,  stand  side  by  side, 
And  here,  beneath  the  radiant  smile  of  God, 

Lies  the  vast  splendor  gleaming  far  and  wide." 

Our  road  ends  on  the  edge  of  a  bluff 
facing  the  sea.  Nobody  lives  hereabouts 
except  the  crew  of  a  life-saving  station, 
whose  presence  indicates  that  wrecks  are 
to  be  looked  for  on  the  reefs  near  this 
shore  at  any  time  of  stormy  weather.  In 
the  bibliography  of  the  island  there  is  a 
brochure  which  describes  the  wrecks  of 
more  than  five  hundred  vessels  during  the 
years  since  the  island  was  settled.  East  of 
the  station  stand  the  remains  of  a  big  hotel 
which  was  hopefully  built  for  summer 
guests.  The  ocean  is  crumbling  away  a 
92 


Surf  side  and  Tom  Never 

narrow  space  of  the  bluff  in  front  of  it, 
gales  have  split  it  in  twain  and  carried 
away  an  end  of  it,  and  still  it  holds  up  to 
the  surges  its  painted  legend,  "Surfside 
Hotel,"  as  if  to  attract  guests  from  the 
southern  seas.  We  looked  into  the  ruined 
apartments,  and  pictured  to  ourselves  the 
gay  scenes  that  illumined  them  twenty 
summers  ago  when  the  hotel  began  its 
speculative  career. 

The  building  was  brought  from  Nar- 
ragansett  Pier,  and  reconstructed  on  the 
bluff  where  its  wreck  now  stands.  A  nar- 
row-gauge railroad  connected  it  with  the 
steamboat  landing  in  Nantucket  town, 
and  during  its  first  summer  the  road 
brought  many  guests.  The  Clan  Coffin 
also  came  to  the  new  hotel,  and  celebrated 
the  memory  of  their  ancestor  Tristram,  a 
leader  of  the  company  of  proprietors  of 
Nantucket,  who  drew  lots  for  their  home- 
steads in  the  summer  of  1661.  After  the 
close  of  that  first  season,  a  letter  written 
93 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

on  the  island  was  published  in  a  Boston 
newspaper  of  December,  1881,  saying: 
"  The  owners  of  the  hotel  are  well  satis- 
fied with  their  investment;  and  well  they 
may  be,  for  against  the  predictions  of 
croakers  the  first  season's  business  excelled 
their  expectations,  and  the  future  is  big 
with  promise."  Alas !  for  the  fatality  of 
first  impressions.  There  was  no  season 
like  the  initial  one.  The  owners  had 
planned  to  surround  the  hotel  with  sum- 
mer cottages,  and  to  make  the  hamlet 
a  popular  resort  outrivaling  Siasconset. 
They  did  not  know  how  narrow  and  stiff 
are  the  limits  of  speculative  ventures  on 
Nantucket. 

From  the  wrecked  hotel  run  lines  of 
sandy  and  grassy  wheel-tracks  eastward, 
following  the  contour  of  the  shore,  and 
passing  Tom  Never's  Head,  Tom  Nev- 
er's  Pond,  Tom  Never's  Swamp.  These 
three  South  Shore  landmarks  are  named 
on  every  map  of  the  island,  but  nobody 
94 


Surf  side  and  Tom  Never 

answers  the  question  —  Who  was  Tom 
Never? 

We  conclude  from  what  we  have  read 
of  Nantucket  history  that  Tom  Never 
was  an  Indian  living  on  this  shore  about 
two  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  ago, 
appointed  by  the  English  settlers  to  be 
master  of  the  section,  to  watch  for  and 
oversee  the  "  cutting-up "  of  stranded 
whales.  \Ve  also  conclude  that  he  was 
a  brother  of  Jack  Never,  an  incorrigible 
Indian  thief  who,  "  not  having  the  fear 
of  God  before  his  eyes  but  instigated  by 
the  Devil,"  did  break  "  into  Captain  John 
Gardners  house  in  the  midel  of  the  night 
and  tooke  out  of  Mr.  Gardners  pocket  by 
the  bead  side  five  shillings  and  also  opened 
a  case  and  carried  away  a  bottel  with  about 
a  pint  of  Licquor  in  it ; "  so  says  the  court's 
record. 

The  gain  of  land  from  the  sea  is  notice- 
able along  the  shore  from  Tom  Never's 
Head  to  Siasconset.  The  sea  no  longer 
95 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

reaches  the  bluffs,  but  is  shut  off  by  an 
area  of  sands  extending  some  distance 
southward,  and  forming  wide  beaches.  At 
other  parts  of  the  island  the  sea  has  gained 
from  the  land;  as  at  Great  Point,  which 
is  the  North  Cape  of  Nantucket,  made,  as 
geologists  say,  "  of  sands  and  detritus  car- 
ried to  the  position  by  currents."  The  sea 
has  eaten  away  the  point  to  a  distance  of 
fourteen  hundred  feet  within  a  century. 

There  is  no  sea  marge,  no  beach  of  any 
kind,  at  Surfside.  The  sandy  face  of  the 
bluff  slopes  steeply  into  the  water  twenty 
feet  deep ;  the  surges  slide  up  and  down 
the  slope,  carrying  away  more  and  more 
of  the  sand  every  year  to  lodge  it  on  some 
other  part  of  the  island  shore.  To-day  a 
keen  southwest  wind  is  throwing  the  spray 
of  every  breaker  into  the  air,  and  sending 
up  to  us,  as  we  stand  on  the  edge  of  the 
bluff,  the  salty  smell  of  the  sea.  Spreading 
our  rugs  on  the  slope,  we  seat  ourselves  in 
front  of  the  ocean.  Between  us  and  that 


Surf  side  and  Tom  Never 

dark  blue  rim,  miles  away,  where  sky  and 
ocean  meet,  not  a  sail  is  to  be  seen ;  but 
we  can  see  patches  of  blue  and  purple  and 
green  and  gray,  telling  us  that  the  sea  is 
of  all  colors.  One  who  has  written  admir- 
ingly of  it  says:  "Those  glimmering  tints 
which  often  invest  the  tops  of  mountains 
are  mere  coruscations  compared  with  these 
marine  colors  which  are  continually  vary- 
ing and  shifting  into  each  other  in  the 
vivid  splendor  of  the  rainbow."  With  all 
its  beauty,  it  remains  the  never  satisfied  sea, 
always  speaking  its  "  eternal  whisperings  " 
to  the  crumbling  land.  Tennyson  called 
its  voice  the  "  moanings  of  the  homeless 
sea ; "  Aldrich  heard  in  it  a  "  strange  artic- 
ulate sorrow ; "  Bliss  Carman  fancied  it 
to  be  "  mourning  about  an  ancient  grief." 
None  of  these  melancholy  suggestions 
came  to  us  while  we  listened.  On  the 
contrary,  under  the  influences  of  sunshine 
and  breeze,  it  seemed  to  be  a  voice  of 


97 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

gladness.   Exultingly  did  we  repeat  Whit- 
tier's  verse :  — 

"  Good-by  to  pain  and  care.    I  take  mine  ease  to-day. 
Here  where  these  sunny  waters  break 
And  ripples  this  keen  breeze,  I  shake 

All  burdens  from  the  heart,  all  weary  thoughts  away.'* 

Such  enjoyment  is  all  that  is  to  be 
found  on  the  solitary  bluffs  of  Surfside. 

Returning  to  town,  we  went  down  to 
the  bathing-beach  in  the  afternoon  and 
sat  on  the  rocks  of  the  harbor  jetty,  watch- 
ing children  who  were  searching  in  the 
edge  of  the  sea  for  snails  and  tiny  crabs. 
The  sociable  dog  of  the  bathing-master 
invited  us  to  bathe  by  going  into  shallow 
water,  lying  down  in  it,  and  looking  at 
us  with  inquiring  eyes.  As  we  did  not 
accept  the  invitation,  he  came  ashore 
and  laid  himself  beside  us,  as  if  to  be  ready 
for  any  service  that  we  might  need.  We 
remember  him  as  a  "good  fellow." 


98 


Maddaquet  and  the  Men 
with  a  Hoe 


SIXTH  DAY 


Maddaquet  and  the  Men  with  a  Hoe 

This  morning  we  rode  in 
our  red -wheeled,  rubber- 
tired,  runabout  wagon  to 
Maddaquet,  on  the  western  end  of  the 
island.  At  a  short  distance  beyond  the 
town  we  passed  a  granite  stone  set  up  on 
the  roadside  to  mark  the  site  of  the  house 
in  which  was  born  Abiah  Folger,  the 
mother  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  Further 
away  in  the  fields  is  seen  a  granite  memo- 
rial of  John  Gardner,  a  prominent  man 
among  the  earlier  settlers  of  Nantucket, 
who  prevented  the  founding  of  an  aristo- 
cracy of  landholders  to  govern  the  island, 
which  was  attempted  by  Tristram  Coffin 
and  Thomas  Mayhew.  The  contest,  bitter 
and  revengeful,  lasted  seven  years  (from 
1673  to  1680).  Gardner  was  supported 
101 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

by  public  opinion,  but  his  party  in  voting 
had  a  majority  of  only  two,  and  this  was 
destroyed  by  the  bribing  of  Thomas  Macy 
and  his  son-in-law,  William  Worth,  who 
suddenly  "  whipped  over  to  the  other 
side."  Yet,  in  spite  of  this  defection, 
Gardner  managed  the  contest  so  skillfully 
that,  when  the  Coffinites  were  summoned 
before  Governor  Lovelace  in  New  York, 
they  said  in  complaint  of  the  skill  of  their 
opponents,  "Every  card  they  play  is  an 
ace,  and  every  ace  a  trump." 

The  road  we  are  traveling  loses  its  out- 
lines after  a  while  in  undulating  fields, 
under  patches  of  moss,  lichen,  and  dry 
grasses;  from  these  it  emerges  at  short 
distances  in  faint  wheel-tracks,  hard  and 
dry  like  the  traces  of  vehicles  that  may 
have  passed  this  way  a  long  time  ago. 
Our  horse  follows  a  trail,  discernible  under 
the  wild  vegetation,  until  we  reach  its  end 
on  a  flat  and  sandy  shore.  Here  we  stop 


102 


Maddaquet  and  the  Men  with  a  Hoe 

to  take  our  bearings  and   listen   to  the 
strange  silence  of  the  region. 

We  have  ridden  to  the  edge  of  Madda- 
quet Harbor;  not  a  boat,  nor  a  landing- 
pier,  nor  a  living  thing  is  in  sight ;  not  a 
sound  is  heard  except  that  of  the  west 
wind,  which  is  blowing  on  our  faces  and 
seems  to  affect  us  with  its  tonic  proper- 
ties. It  is  the  harbor  and  the  shore  where, 
as  a  popular  tradition  says,  two  English- 
men named,  Ed  ward  Starbuck  and  Thomas 
Macy,  the  latter  with  wife  and  children, 
coming  from  Massachusetts  Colony  in 
"an  open  boat,"  landed  and  spent  the 
winter  of  1659;  not  f°r  t^ie^r  health,  but, 
as  is  presumed,  for  their  religious  opinions. 
Here  nobody  could  dispute  a  belief  in  the 
tenets  of  John  Calvin,  for  the  Indians  who 
occupied  the  island  knew  neither  Calvin 
nor  the  English  tongue.  As  there  was  an 
abundance  of  forest  wood  in  the  vicinity, 
the  two  Englishmen,  the  woman,  and  the 


103 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

children  were  able  to  keep  a  fire  burning 
through  the  winter ;  otherwise  they  would 
have  perished.  After  they  had  ended  their 
hibernation,  the  tradition  says  that  the  men 
went  abroad  on  the  island  with  a  hoe  to 
dig  for  fertile  soil,  but  it  does  not  say  what 
they  found.  To-day  the  region  is  more 
desolate  than  it  was  then.  There  is  neither 
a  tree  to  be  seen,  nor  a  man  with  a  hoe. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  there  was 
a  harbor  at  Maddaquet  in  the  year  1659, 
and  whether  there  is  truth  in  the  tradition. 
If  we  turn  to  a  chart  made  from  surveys 
by  British  naval  officers  between  the  years 
1700  and  1720,  which  gives  the  outlines 
of  Nantucket  island  with  the  shoals  and 
soundings  of  adjacent  waters,  we  find  no 
harbor  at  Maddaquet;  but  in  place  of  the 
sandspit  which  now  forms  the  southern 
boundary  of  the  harbor,  we  find  "  coarse 
sand"  under  three  fathoms  depth  of  sea. 
The  tradition  says  that  the  "  open  boat " 
passed  around  and  outside  Cape  Cod; 
104 


Maddaquet  and  the  Men  with  a  Hoe 

and  when  meeting  tempestuous  weather, 
Macy's  wife  urged  him  to  turn  around  and 
go  back  to  their  home ;  to  which  he  replied, 
"Woman,  go  below!"  Without  asking 
where  "below"  is  located  in  an  "open 
boat,"  let  us  notice  the  fact  that  Cape  Cod 
was,  as  stated  by  Bartholomew  Gosnold, 
who  visited  it  in  the  year  1602,  an  island. 
The  island  extended  from  Race  Point  to 
Eastham ;  between  that  town  and  Nauset 
there  was  a  wide  channel  or  strait  from 
Barnstable  Bay  to  the  ocean.  No  boats 
went  outside  the  Cape ;  small  craft  always 
went  down  the  Bay,  under  lee  of  the  Cape, 
and  out  to  sea  through  this  passage, 
which  was  open,  according  to  Gosnold, 
in  the  year  1602,  and  was  also  open,  as 
the  chart  shows,  in  the  year  1717.  A 
memorandum  written  on  the  chart  opposite 
to  the  passage,  probably  written  by  one 
of  the  surveyors,  says :  "  Ye  Place  where 
I  came  through  with  a  Whale  Boat,  being 
ordered  by  ye  Government  to  look  after 
105 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

ye  Pirate  Ship  Whido,  Bellamy  Com- 
mander, cast  away  ye  26  April  1717, 
where  I  buried  One  Hundred  &  Two 
Men  Drowned." 

That  there  were  forests  on  Nantucket 
island  when  it  was  first  occupied  by  white 
men  has  been  disputed  by  geologists ;  but 
the  fact  is  amply  certified  in  records  which 
contain  various  laws  enacted  by  the  inhab- 
itants in  town  meeting  assembled,  to  pro- 
tect their  forests  from  destruction.  For 
example :  on  Nanahuma  Neck  it  was  for- 
bidden "  to  fall  any  timber  within  its  con- 
siderable woodland ; "  on  the  peninsula  of 
Coatue,  which  is  now  as  barren  of  vegeta- 
tion as  a  sandspit  (except  where  a  species 
of  cactus  is  existing),  there  were  pine 
and  cedar  trees  sufficiently  dense  in  their 
growth  to  furnish  a  winter  shelter  for 
flocks  of  sheep ;  Indians  were  claiming  an 
ancient  right  to  cut  firewood  there,  when 
a  town  meeting  forbade  "the  Cutting  of 
any  more  Wood  of  any  sort  off  from 
106 


Maddaquet  and  the  Men  with  a  Hoe 

Coatue."  A  law  was  also  enacted  by  the 
town  forbidding  "  to  fall  any  more  timber 
for  rails  and  posts,  and  no  timber  for 
building  bowses,"  except  at  specified  times. 

Turning  from  the  past  to  the  present, 
we  discover  a  life-saving  station  a  mile 
away  on  the  southern  shore,  and  north  of 
us  we  see  a  small  gray  house.  We  drive 
across  a  field  to  the  house  and  knock  upon 
the  door,  which  is  opened  by  a  woman  in 
the  dress  of  one  who  is  never  expecting 
a  caller  at  this  solitary  end  of  the  island. 
In  answer  to  our  inquiry  for  the  location 
of  any  road  on  which  we  can  travel  back 
to  the  town,  she  points  to  a  stake  standing 
upright  on  a  distant  hillside,  and  says  it  is 
the  place  where  we  can  find  a  trail  leading 
into  a  road  that  enters  the  main  street. 

This  interview  occurred  outside  the 
door;  but  now  her  husband  appears  and 
cordially  invites  us  into  the  house.  We 
learn  that  he  is  the  lord  of  an  estate  at  the 
eastern  end  of  the  island,  on  which  he  has 
107 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

built  several  cottages  that  are  annually 
rented  to  summer  people ;  and  when  his 
tenants  return  to  their  homes  on  the  main- 
land, it  is  his  custom  to  retire  to  this  re- 
mote corner  in  search  of  rest  and  sport 
with  his  gun.  He  was  formerly  a  business 
man  in  New  York  city.  He  came  to 
Nantucket  in  search  of  better  health,  and 
remained  to  enjoy  what  he  came  for.  He 
told  us  that  he  had  found  the  climate  of 
the  island  very  pleasant  from  May  to 
December;  that  in  summer  the  thermo- 
meter sometimes  rises  to  eighty  degrees 
during  the  day,  but  the  temperature  dur- 
ing the  night  is  always  pleasantly  cool; 
and  it  is  a  satisfaction  to  know  that  every 
breeze  touching  the  island  comes  clean 
and  pure  from  the  ocean.  He  politely 
offered  to  each  of  us  a  glass  of  whiskey; 
but,  being  away  from  home,  and  feeling 
that  there  was  sufficient  exhilaration  in 
the  air  of  Nantucket,  we  drank  cold  water. 
After  thanking  our  host  for  his  hospi- 
108 


Maddaquet  and  the  Men  with  a  Hoe 

table  attentions,  we  mounted  our  wagon, 
drove  to  the  stake  standing  on  a  hillside, 
and  turned  into  a  trail  which  our  horse 
appeared  to  know.  It  is  now  high  noon. 
Bareheaded,  in  the  glorious  sunlight,  we 
ride  leisurely  across  a  long,  wide  plain 
which  in  former  times  was  a  common 
where  were  pastured  thousands  of  sheep, 
tended  by  shepherds  during  all  the  year. 
There  is  no  sign  of  human  life  or  labor  to 
be  seen.  On  each  side  of  us  are  hills 
covered  like  the  plain  with  tall  wild  grasses 
that  have  not  been  mowed  since  the  sheep 
were  killed.  The  tops  of  the  grasses,  yel- 
low and  gray,  are  waving  in  the  wind  and 
flashing  in  the  sunlight  as  we  ride  in 
friendly  silence,  our  senses  on  the  alert  to 
catch  every  feature  of  the  strange  scenery 
which  seems  to  have  an  emotional  attrac- 
tion of  its  own. 

At  last  we  emerged  from  this  region  on 
a  traveled  road  that  led  into  the  main  street 
of  Nantucket  town. 

109 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

In  the  afternoon  we  visited  a  shop  where 
old  colonial  house  furniture  is  exhibited, 
and  looked  with  admiring  eyes  on  mahog- 
any highboys  and  lowboys  with  flame  and 
scroll  tops,  bandy  legs,  claw  feet,  and  shell 
enrichments.  As  it  is  known  that  in- 
quisitors of  the  Quaker  Society  sometimes 
entered  the  houses  of  members,  and  with 
instruments  removed  ornaments  from  the 
furniture,  it  is  not  probable  that  such  beau- 
tiful articles  as  these  were  commonly  seen 
in  the  homes  of  colonial  Nantucket.  Then 
we  went  to  the  rooms  of  the  Historical 
Association  and  examined  its  interesting 
memorials  of  other  times.  We  ended  the 
day  with  the  enjoyment  of  hot  salt  water 
baths  in  a  tidy  bathing-house  standing  on 
the  shore. 


no 


TFauwinet  and  Sankaty 
Light 


SEVENTH  DAY 


Wauwinet  and  Sankaty  Light 

This  sunny  morning,  in 
our  red-wheeled,  rubber- 
tired,  runabout  wagon 
we  rode  to  Wauwinet,  a  hamlet  on  the 
eastern  end  of  the  island,  nine  miles  from 
town  as  the  road  goes. 

Turning  off  from  the  macadamed  thor- 
oughfare to  Siasconset,  we  enter  upon  an 
old  highway  that  veers  to  the  northeast, 
and  opens  many  views  of  the  town  we 
are  leaving  behind.  Occasionally  we  pass 
between  groups  of  fragrant  pine-trees ; 
on  hillsides  we  see  large  patches  of  hazel- 
nut  bushes,  the  leaves  being  remarkably 
brilliant  in  the  sunlight,  and  we  catch 
the  odors  of  sassafras  and  sweet  ferns.  In 
colonial  times  this  region  was  spoken  of 
as  the  garden  of  Nantucket.  There  were 
113 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

farms  producing  large  crops  of  corn  and 
wheat.  Those  old  wheel-tracks  that  we  see, 
covered  by  mealplum  vines,  are  probably 
the  remains  of  by-roads  which  connected 
neighboring  farmhouses  with  the  highway 
to  town.  Under  the  date  of  August  8, 
1761,  President  Stiles  of  Yale  College 
wrote  in  his  diary,  "  Mr.  Josiah  Barker  of 
Nantucket  told  me  that  the  Island  has 
about  800  families  on  it.  They  have  6000 
or  7000  Sheep.  They  buy  50  or  60 
Sheep  from  the  mainland  yearly.  They 
plant  900  to  1000  acres  of  Indian  Corn." 
In  truth,  Nantucket  men  were  farmers 
long  before  they  became  seamen.  The 
first  thing  done  by  those  who  drew  lots 
for  homesteads  in  the  year  1661  was  to 
lay  out  fields  for  corn;  and  in  the  year 
1665  forty-eight  farmers  registered  the  ear- 
marks of  herds  and  flocks  then  at  pasture 
on  the  island.  If  they  tilled  the  land 
in  the  careful  manner  of  their  British 
kinsmen,  the  farming  accounts  (could  we 
114 


Wauwinet  and  Sankaty  Light 

find  them)  would  give  an  interesting  in- 
sight of  agricultural  life  more  than  two 
centuries  ago.  They  would  tell  of  women 
and  children  as  helpers  in  the  harvest 
fields ;  of  acres  of  grain  and  weights  of 
wool  produced ;  of  barley  winnowed,  and 
tailings  given  to  pigeons,  pigs,  and  horses ; 
of  salting  the  bacon  and  brining  the  wheat ; 
of  keeping  of  the  flocks,  and  how  the 
shepherd's  wife  was  willing  to  lend  a  hand 
in  "lambing  tyme."  But  those  early 
farmers  left  no  mark  save  these  old  roads. 
We  notice  old  houses  and  lands  that  are 
advertised  "for  sale;"  the  painted  signs 
announcing  the  fact  have  become  almost 
illegible  while  waiting  for  a  buyer  who 
does  not  come.  Yonder  we  see  Quaise 
Point,  which  John  Swaine  bought  from 
the  Indians  in  the  year  1686,  and  paid  for 
it  a  toll  of  one  bushel  of  wheat  annually 
during  his  life.  There,  in  the  time  of  the 
Revolution,  was  the  country  home  of  Ke- 
ziah  Coffin,  a  famous  woman  who,  while 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

her  husband  was  at  sea  on  his  first  cruise, 
traded  in  pins  and  needles,  and  also  kept 
a  little  school  for  the  children  of  her 
neighborhood ;  after  a  while  she  traded 
in  larger  merchandise  than  pins  and 
needles;  she  established  a  system  of  mer- 
cantile business  with  connections  in  Lon- 
don, became  an  importer  and  a  smuggler, 
acquired  wealth  and  a  farm  at  Quaise,  and 
built  what  was  called  the  best  house  on  the 
island.  Her  husband  gave  up  the  pursuit 
of  whales  in  distant  seas,  and  being  a  con- 
templative man,  he  came  ashore  and 
quietly  enjoyed  the  home  and  fortune 
which  the  skill  of  his  masterly  wife  had 
acquired.  In  the  Revolutionary  War 
Aunt  Keziah,  as  she  was  called,  was,  like 
a  majority  of  the  women  of  Nantucket, 
a  Tory;  and  it  is  said  that  she  dressed 
herself  in  black  as  a  sign  of  her  sorrow 
for  the  rebellion  of  the  colonies  against 
his  most  gracious  Majesty  the  King. 
Passing  by  the  site  of  Palpus,  we  are 
116 


Wauwinet  and  Sankaty  Light 

reminded  of  its  ancient  House  of  Entertain- 
ment, and  how  often  the  people  of  the 
town  rode  to  it  in  their  calashes,  a  century 
ago,  to  enjoy  its  exhilarating  bowls  and 
spend  an  idle  day.  Then  touching  the 
whip  to  our  horse,  we  sped  along  the  road 
to  the  hamlet  called  Wauwinet.  That  was 
the  name  of  the  Indian  sachem  who  ruled 
over  this  region  before  the  white  men  came. 

We  hitched  our  horse  to  a  post  standing 
in  the  sand,  the  last  remnant  of  an  ancient 
fence  of  rails,  and  looked  about  us.  We 
saw  a  house  prepared  to  serve  fish  dinners, 
a  few  small  dwellings  occupied  by  sum- 
mer people,  and  a  sailboat  landing  a  pic- 
nic party  just  arrived  from  town. 

Not  far  away  is  a  Haulover,  a  narrow 
beach  having  the  ocean  on  one  side  of  it, 
and  on  the  other  side  a  branch  of  Nan- 
tucket  harbor.  The  beach  attracts  us  at 
once ;  it  seems  to  be  the  place  where  "  it 
is  always  afternoon."  We  hear  the  faint 
"  dick-a-dee  "  of  a  sandpiper  while  it  runs 
117 


September  Days  on  'Nantucket 

and  stops  and  runs  again,  searching  the 
shore  for  something  to  eat ;  and  the  squeak 
of  gulls  that  are  wheeling  and  soaring  and 
flitting  low  to  examine  whatever  is  drifting 
on  the  sea;  and  the  cry  of  the  piping 
plover  whose  voice,  Thoreau  says,  is  like 
"a  fugacious  part  in  the  dirge  which  is 
ever  played  along  the  shore  for  those 
mariners  who  have  been  lost  in  the  deep 
since  it  was  first  created."  Rare  and  beau- 
tiful species  of  shore  birds  are  not  here ; 
if  a  solitary  one  should  venture  to  alight 
on  any  part  of  the  island,  it  would  proba- 
bly be  killed  by  a  sportsman  or  a  natu- 
ralist who  is  seeking  to  destroy  the  creature 
that  deserves  to  live. 

Along  the  edge  of  the  ocean  we  strolled, 
picking  up  shells;  their  delicate  hinges 
were  broken  and  the  homes  were  empty, 
as  if  the  little  beings  that  had  lived  in 
them  went  out  this  morning  for  an  airing 
and  the  thievish  waves  seized  their  homes, 
scoured  them  clean,  and  flung  them  on  the 
118 


Wauwinet  and  Sankaty  Light 

sand.  It  is  easy  to  recall  the  argument 
of  an  eloquent  preacher  that  each  of  these 
tiny  shells  is  as  "  full  of  the  idea  of  design 
as  any  star  in  the  heavens,  and  if  the  neb- 
ular hypothesis  be  the  explanation  of  the 
creation  of  worlds,  there  is  no  star  that  is 
so  far  advanced  in  the  order  of  develop- 
ment as  these  minute  shells  and  their  un- 
known tenants."  1 

Through  our  glasses  we  watch  the  ships 
that  appear  and  disappear  on  the  distant 
horizon,  and  the  flotsams  drifting  in  the 
currents.  South  of  us  stands  the  tower  of 
Sankaty  Light,  which  nightly  flashes  its 
white  flame  — 

"  Onward  ever,  and  outward  ever, 

Over  the  uttermost  verge  of  the  sea,"  — 

except  when  dazed  seabirds  plunge  head- 
long through  the  glass  lantern  and  extin- 
guish the  light.2 

1  Thomas  R.  Slicer. 

a  "  Nantucket,  April  2d,  1902.    Two  wild  ducks, 
119 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

The  cliff  on  which  the  lighthouse  stands 
rises  about  eighty  feet  above  high  tide, 
and  has  attracted  much  attention  from 
geologists,  who  have  spoken  of  it  as  the 
most  interesting  section  of  the  island  on 
account  of  its  fossiliferous  deposits.  Unlike 
other  cliffs  on  these  shores,  it  is  covered 
by  a  thick  growth  of  wild  vegetation,  which, 
it  is  said,  is  due  to  the  northward  advance 
of  Siasconset  Beach,  fending  the  cliff  from 
the  action  of  the  sea. 

As  an  example  of  the  imagination  of 
correspondents  who  have  passed  a  day  or 
two  on  the  island  and  visited  this  shore, 
let  us  read  from  a  letter  published  in  a 
Boston  newspaper  of  July,  1852:  "Nan- 
tucket  is  itself  a  great  beacon ;  and,  for  the 
protection  of  Vineyard  Sound  and  hun- 

weighing   about  seven  pounds  each,  crashed  through 
the  lantern  of  the  lighthouse  at  Great  Point  last  night, ' 
extinguishing  the  light.    The  broken  glass  plate  mea- 
sured 6  feet  by  27  inches  and  was  three  eighths  of  an 
inch  thick." — Press  Report. 
120 


Wauwinet  and  Sankaty  Light 

dreds  of  ports  on  the  coast,  it  is  furnished 
with  quite  a  constellation  of  lighthouses." 
The  truth  is  that  the  island  has  but  two 
lighthouses,  besides  Sankaty,  useful  in 
navigation ;  one  of  these  is  a  harbor  light 
on  Brant  Point,  and  the  other  a  sea  light 
on  the  northernmost  extremity  of  Coatue. 
Another  correspondent,  writing  to  a  Boston 
newspaper  of  July,  1877,  ^Y8'  "Nan- 
tucket  is  replete  with  monuments  grown 
gray  with  age,  Indian  relics,  and  other  sad- 
der ones  snatched  from  the  vasty  deep. 
From  Tuckernuck  to  Sankaty  Light  there 
is  n't  a  rod  of  land  without  its  traditions, 
nor  a  living  being  from  whom  an  hour's 
converse  cannot  obtain  an  interesting  stock 
of  information."  A  postscript  of  this  let- 
ter seems  to  reveal  the  writer  of  it ;  for  it 
says :  "  The  watering-place  beat  has  made 
his  appearance  at  Nantucket," 

Failing  to  find  the  gray  monuments,  and 
the  sad  relics,  and  the  living  being  on  every 
rod  of  land  waiting  to  give  us  a  stock  of 

121 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

information,  we  follow  the  summer  custom 
and  lie  down  on  the  sloping  sands.  The 
day  is  before  us  as  well  as  the  ocean,  and 
we  are  not  in  haste  to  return  to  the  town. 
While  the  lace-shaped  spindrifts  of  the 
surf  are  running  up  near  to  our  feet,  we 
sing  the  words  of  Carolyn  Wells :  — 

"  Come  with  the  rest  of  us 
Down  by  the  sea  ; 
There  is  where  we 
Show  out  the  best  of  us  ; 
Holiday  keep 
Chums  with  the  waves ; 
When  saucy  winds  sing, 
All  of  our  cares 
Back  of  them  fling 
And  bury  them  deep 
Down  by  the  sea." 


122 


The  Town  and  the  Captains 


The  Town  and  the  Captains 


Our   seven   sunny 
ttlOrtt      days  will  come  to 
LAST   DAY  an  end  this  noon, 

when  the  steamer  Gay  Head  is  to  carry  us 
away  from  the  island. 

At  an  early  hour  we  wandered  into  the 
country,  without  a  purpose  except  to 
enjoy  once  more  the  delicious  outdoor  air 
of  Nantucket.  We  turned  our  steps  into 
an  ancient  burial  field,  read  the  inscrip- 
tions on  old  gravestones,  and  then  seated 
ourselves  in  the  sunlight  on  top  of  a  brick 
tomb  dated  a  hundred  years  ago,  and 
talked  about  the  pleasures  of  the  week, 
never  to  be  forgotten.  The  ground 
around  us  was  covered  with  tiny  wild 
flowers  and  the  red  remains  of  brier- 
roses  that  bloomed  last  June.  Before  us 
125 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

the  landscape  extended  to  the  ridge  of  a 
distant  hill,  on  the  edge  of  which  we  saw 
the  silhouette  of  a  purple  cow,  the  very 
cow  described  in  the  Nonsense  Book,  that 
"  ate  of  naught  but  violet  flowers." 

Then  there  passed  along  the  highway 
an  old  man  driving  a  cart.  Seeing  us  sit- 
ting atop  the  tomb  he  cried  out: — 

"  Hello,  Cap'n !  Don't  fall  in !  You  '11 
get  in  soon  enough  if  you  wait ! " 

We  approved  his  wit,  thanked  him  for 
his  warning,  and,  recognizing  him  as  a 
representative  of  the  island,  we  bade  him 
good-by. 

The  permanent  residents  of  the  town, 
some  of  whom  live  in  those  comfortable- 
looking  houses  that  are  to  be  seen  in 
many  streets,  are  proud  of  their  descent 
from  brave  seafaring  men,  whose  sea-jour- 
nals, containing  the  story  of  voyages  and 
discoveries,  are  the  historical  literature  of 
Nantucket.  Although  they  did  not  invite 
the  summer  stranger  to  make  their  island 
126 


The  Town  and  the  Captains 

home  the  scene  of  his  leisure,  they  are 
glad  to  see  him,  provided  he  shall  write  no 
silly  letters  about  it  to  newspapers,1  nor 
defame  their  revered  captains. 

A  fine  specimen  of  the  "  silly  letter " 
appeared  in  a  New  York  newspaper, 
August  23,  1896,  in  which  the  writer  of 
it,  describing  "  Nantucket  twenty-five 
years  ago,"  said :  "  The  inhabitants  re- 
garded a  stranger  coldly,  but  compassion- 
ately. He  was  received  on  probation, 
which  was  not  at  all  a  matter  of  form. 
Cases  were  not  unknown  when  gallants 
from  the  mainland  had  been  chased  over 
dune  and  dale  the  livelong  night  by  fish- 
ermen as  wrathful  as  they  were  sturdy.  .  .  . 
A  funereal  peace  prevailed  in  the  town,  the 
deeper  for  the  absence  of  undertakers. 
The  doors  of  the  poor-house  and  of  the 

1  The  general  inability  of  traveling  correspondents  to 

esteem  Nantucket  rightly  is  illustrated  by  one  who  wrote 

to  a  New  York  newspaper  :   ««  Baalbec  was  a  puzzle, 

Tadmor  was  a  wonder  ;  but  Nantucket  is  a  miracle." 

127 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

jail  were  never  locked ;  the  selectmen  re- 
jected keys  as  extravagant  luxuries."  The 
same  correspondent,  describing  a  fire  "  late 
one  night,"  said :  "  There  was  a  mighty 
commotion  throughout  the  old  burgh. 
The  Queen  Anne  bell  clanged  shrilly. 
Men,  women,  and  children  devotedly 
rushed  to  the  fire.  The  wind  was  blowing 
a  gale.  The  women  formed  lines  and 
passed  and  repassed  buckets.  The  chil- 
dren spread  wet  blankets  on  roofs  and 
stamped  out  sparks.  The  men  kept  the 
hand  engines  hot  with  pumping.  The 
water  supply  was  dependent  on  wells  which 
were  quickly  exhausted ;  but  no  matter, 
there  was  an  abundance  of  strong  and  will- 
ing arms.  The  lines  were  extended  further 
and  further.  The  engines  were  moved 
hither  and  thither,  and  so  the  deluging 
was  never  slackened.  With  the  morning 
light  the  families  returned  to  their  homes, 
drenched,  disordered,  wild-haired,  but  tri- 
umphant," etc. 

128 


The  Town  and  the  Captains 

As  to  the  revered  captains,  they  are  not, 
as  some  newspaper  correspondents  have 
described  them,  "battered  old  hulks;" 
nor  are  they  the  jolly  mariners  of  the 
drama  who  exclaim,  "  Blast  your  eyes ! " 
and  "  Shiver  my  timbers !  "  when  convers- 
ing with  each  other.  They  are  heroes  of 
the  sea,  who  have  been  anointed  with  oil. 
Some  of  them  went  afloat  before  they 
were  twelve  years  old;  some  of  them 
while  boys  doubled  Cape  Horn  when  "  it 
was  nothing  but  haul  down  and  clew  up," 
in  rain,  sleet,  and  snow.  Now,  having 
furled  their  topsails  and  retired  from  a 
life  at  sea,  they  meet  socially,  not  as  a 
club,  but  as  men  whose  lives  have  been 
passed  in  similar  dangers  and  experiences. 
They  sit  in  their  own  armchairs,  in  their 
own  room,  on  the  first  floor  of  the  old 
brick  building  that  stands  at  the  foot  of 
Main  Street,  and  there  they  intelligently 
discuss  all  current  topics.  A  man  who 
happens  to  be  in  the  public  eye  and  is 
129 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

steering  a  wrong  course,  or  a  summer  vis- 
itor to  the  island  who  is  carrying  too  many 
sails,  will  be  passed  with  the  conclusion 
that  "  He  may  possibly  get  over  the  bar 
at  low  water ; "  a  reminder  of  the  fact  that 
only  vessels  of  the  shallowest  draft  can 
cross  the  harbor  bar  when  the  tide  has 
ebbed 

A  towns  woman  describes  the  captains 
as  chivalrous  and  upright  men,  kindly 
if  humorously  tolerant,  whose  faces  are 
strong  and  serene,  and  whose  failing  sight 
is  yet  keen  enough  to  see  straight  through 
a  pretender.  "As  they  sit  around  the 
fire,"  she  says,  "or  when  summer  lures 
them  out  to  the  sidewalk,  and  they  tilt 
back  their  chairs  comfortably  under  the 
trees,  exchanging  friendly  greetings  with 
passers-by,  we  look  upon  these  splendid 
men  and  think  how  soon  the  time  will 
come  when  not  one  of  them  will  be  left ; 
and  we  devoutly  hope  that  the  ready- 
writer  will  spend  his  vacation  elsewhere, 
130 


The  Town  and  the  Captains 

and  so  leave  us  in  peace  with  our  cap- 
tains upon  the  blessed  island  which  by 
their  presence  they  have  made  sacred  to 
us  forever." * 

The  town  offers  to  strangers  no  spe- 
cial attractions  for  passing  the  time.  For- 
merly there  were  to  be  seen  in  it  collec- 
tions of  curious  things  that  had  been 
brought  by  Nantucket  whalemen  from  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  A  whaleman's  widow 
had  a  museum  of  interesting  South  Sea 
curiosities  which  she  exhibited  and  talked 
about  to  her  audiences,  pointing  a  long 
stick  to  the  articles  described  in  her  fluent 
speech.  Her  curiosities  were  real  ones, 
and  her  stories  were  true.  Now  the  curio 
business  is  in  the  hands  of  summer  shop- 
keepers, and  the  widow's  occupation  is 
not  in  fashion. 

In  the  shops  they  offer  for  sale  excel- 
lent photographs  of  scenery  in  all  parts  of 
the  island.  They  offer  corals  and  tropical 

1  A  Protest,  by  Mary  E.  Starbuck. 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

shells,  whale's  teeth,  swords  of  the  sword- 
fish,  sea  mosses  inclosed  in  scallop  shells, 
old  furniture,  pewter  porringers,  brass  can- 
dlesticks, blue  chinaware,  and  many  small 
articles  of  bricabrac.  They  also  offer  a 
few  old  shingles  taken  from  old  houses. 
These  are  tied  together  with  ribbons; 
sometimes  they  form  covers  to  a  series  of 
interesting  photographs,  appealing  to  you 
like  a  blind  beggar  with  a  certificate  of 
age  and  character.  They  may  be  suitable 
tokens  of  a  visit  to  Nantucket ;  but  we 
prefer  a  new  shingle  to  an  old  one  when 
we  have  any  use  for  shingles. 

The  town  is  neither  quaint  nor  peculiar 
in  its  appearance.  The  odd,  the  antique, 
and  the  simple  in  manners  and  customs, 
which,  under  the  name  of  quaintness,  were 
characteristic  of  Nantucket  for  nearly  two 
centuries,  and  are  still  spoken  of  by  those 

"  native  here  and  to  the  manner  born," 

are  now  unknown.   The  heart  of  the  town, 
132 


The  Town  and  the  Captains 

comprising  an  area  of  thirty-six  acres,  on 
which  stood  three  hundred  and  sixty  build- 
ings, including  costly  mansions,  public  ed- 
ifices, and  valuable  stores,  was  burned  to 
ashes  in  a  night  of  July,  1846.  A  Nan- 
tucket  newspaper  of  that  year  says :  "  No 
forms  of  language  can  convey  an  accurate 
idea  of  the  horrors  of  that  memorable  night. 
No  rain  had  fallen  in  a  long  time,  and  the 
houses,  which  were  chiefly  of  wood,  had 
become,  by  the  agency  of  many  long  days 
of  unbroken  sunshine,  amply  ripened  for 
the  fire.  The  flames  flew  from  house  to 
house,  crossing  streets,  lanes,  and  courts 
with  such  unaccountable  and  capricious 
irregularity  as  to  set  at  defiance  the  calcu- 
lations and  exertions  of  firemen  and  engi- 
neers. Explosions  of  gunpowder  and  tor- 
rents of  water  seemed  alike  unavailing  to 
stop  them,  though  directed  by  the  most 
desperate  and  determined  spirits.  Men 
fell  powerless  in  the  highways,  utterly 
worn  down  and  disheartened.  Fire  engines 
133 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

were  yielded  to  the  flames  which  poured 
in  upon  them  from  opposite  quarters. 
Vast  quantities  of  oil  stored  in  sheds  and 
yards,  heated  in  the  casks,  burst  forth  upon 
the  ground,  became  at  once  ignited,  and 
rolled  in  fiery  floods  into  the  harbor,  cov- 
ering the  surface  of  the  water  to  a  great 
distance  with  sheets  of  flame." 

The  value  of  the  property  destroyed 
was  estimated  by  the  selectmen  of  the 
town  to  be  one  million  dollars,  of  which 
only  a  third  part  was  insured.  The  fire 
sifted  the  population  and  compelled  many 
families  to  move  to  the  mainland  and  begin 
anew  the  work  of  life.  The  burnt  area 
was  gradually  rebuilt,  but  there  is  not  to 
be  found  in  it  any  indication  of  that  spirit 
of  enterprise  which  caused  the  old  town  to 
be  ranked  as  the  third  important  city  of 
Massachusetts. 

The  daily  movement  of  the  throng  of 
people  which  seeks  Nantucket  in  July  and 
August  is  interesting  to  persons  who  have 


The  Town  and  the  Captains 

come  from  homes  in  quiet  places ;  but 
summer  days  on  the  island  are  not  more 
delightful  than  the  days  of  September  and 
October,  after  the  movement  has  ceased. 
Those  who  describe  the  glories  of  these 
months  speak  of  the  wide  horizons  that 
greet  the  eye,  of  the  pure  colors  in  sun- 
sets, of  the  soft  lights  that  rest  on  the  ocean 
when  stars  fill  the  heavens  with  a  peculiar 
splendor;  of  the  swamps,  hillsides,  and  val- 
leys brilliant  with  warm  shades  of  red, 
brown,  and  yellow.  There  being  no  for- 
ests on  the  island,  all  the  low-growing 
shrubs  show  themselves  in  their  natural 
character ;  the  sedgy  margins  of  creeks  and 
ponds  and  the  mossy  carpet  of  the  com- 
mons exhibit  an  indescribable  beauty  of 
their  own.  The  surf  rolls  lazily  against  the 
shore,  or  under  a  freshening  breeze  it 
breaks  with  exultant  leap  upon  the  sandy 
beaches.  The  wine  of  life  is  pressed  to 
the  lips  in  such  generous  measure  that  the 
tarrier  on  the  island  rejoices  to  have  seen 
135 


September  Days  on  Nantucket 

Nantucket  after  the  season  of  summer  has 
ended.  Indeed  he  might  say,  as  said 
Ulysses  to  Calypso  of  the  enchanting 
island :  — 

"  I  '11  drift  no  more  upon  the  dreary  sea, 
No  yearning  have  I  now,  and  no  desire. 
Here  would  I  be,  at  ease  upon  this  isle, 
Set  in  the  glassy  ocean's  azure  swoon, 
With  sward  of  parsley  and  of  violet, 
And  these  low-crying  birds  that  haunt  the  deep." 


136 


Various  Opinions 

concerning 
"H^uaint  Nantucket 


Various  Opinions  concerning 


"  Quaint  Nantucket "  by  its  contents  makes 
persuasive  appeal  to  lovers  of  endlessly  interest- 
ing Nantucket,  who  are  not  few,  and  to  lovers 
of  the  quaint  who  are  many.  Mr.  Bliss  has 
given  us  a  very  delightful  book.  From  sea 
journals,  from  records  of  the  Friends'  Meeting, 
from  town  archives,  he  has  gathered  material 
for  his  sketches  of  the  Quaker  island  as  it  was 
long  ago.  He  has  shown  much  wisdom  by 
choosing  the  salient,  the  picturesque  and  the 
typical ;  and  since  he  has  gleaned  solely  in  the 
interests  of  entertainment,  and  with  no  theory 
to  buttress,  the  result  is  instruction  without 
dullness  and  knowledge  gained  by  exceedingly 
pleasant  paths.  No  chapter  is  more  interest- 
ing than  that  which  presents  Nantucket  under 
the  Quaker  rule,  through  which  broke  often 
the  willful  nature  of  Quaker  maidens.  Sarah 
Darling,  for  example,  was  "  treated  with  "  by 
the  brethren  for  consorting  with  a  lover  not  of 
the  faith ;  but  they  "  don't  find  any  disposition 
in  her  to  condemn  herself;  "  Deborah  Smith 
who,  when  dealt  with  for  not  using  the  thee 
and  thou,  sent  back  word  that  she  "  did  n't 
think  she  ever  should  !  "  —  Boston  Transcript. 


138 


Quaint  Nantucket 


William  Root  Bliss  has  given  us  a  delight- 
ful book  in  his  "  Quaint  Nantucket."  He  has 
gone  below  the  surface  and  produced  a  picture 
of  the  Nantucket  of  a  bygone  time  that  is  full 
of  interesting  facts  and  memories.  The  envi- 
ronment of  the  islanders  developed  personal 
traits,  and  Mr.  Bliss  has  found  evidence  of  it 
in  chronicles  of  the  town,  in  records  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  and  in  ancient  log-books. 
The  chapter  entitled  the  Dominion  of  the 
Quakers  is  curious  and  interesting.  The  ex- 
tent to  which  the  Meeting  interfered  with  the 
personal  concerns  of  young  and  old  is  a  singu- 
lar example  of  early  American  theocracy.  The 
log-books  of  the  whaling  fleets  are  a  source 
of  constant  delight.  Mr.  Bliss  tells  a  story  of 
an  old  salt  who  removed  from  Nantucket  to 
the  banks  of  the  Hudson  where  he  became  a 
farmer.  One  day  he  drove  to  the  city  with  a 
load  of  produce,  to  be  gone  three  days.  It  was 
five  years  before  he  got  back  to  his  family.  He 
found  a  ship  fitting  out  for  a  whaling  voyage, 
and  the  restless  longing  in  his  blood  was  roused 
and  away  to  sea  he  went.  —  Brooklyn  Eagle. 


Various  Opinions  concerning 


We  have  had  occasion  more  than  once  to 
give  hearty  commendation  to  the  books  about 
old  New  England,  written  by  William  Root 
Bliss.  In  "  Colonial  Times  on  Buzzard's  Bay," 
u  Side  Glimpses  from  the  Colonial  Meeting 
House,"  and  other  books,  Mr.  Bliss  has  recre- 
ated New  England  as  it  was,  and  he  is  the  first 
to  give  to  the  reading  public  just  what  he  found 
instead  of  what  a  loyal  New  Englander  might 
like  to  have  found.  In  "  Quaint  Nantucket  " 
we  learn  how  the  people  of  the  island  made 
their  settlement,  and  established  their  govern- 
ment, how  they  were  more  loyal  to  the  Dutch 
of  New  York  than  to  the  English,  how  Indians 
were  punished  and  the  Quaker  Meeting  was 
established.  Here  are  extracts  from  court  re- 
cords and  journals  of  sea  rovers,  just  as  they 
were  written.  The  intelligent  reader  would 
prefer  to  have  such  materials  with  which  to 
make  his  own  pictures,  rather  than  be  told  how 
life  looked  to  somebody  else.  One  does  not 
have  to  see  Nantucket  to  appreciate  Mr.  Bliss's 
very  interesting  book.  Harvard  should  make 
him  a  professor  of  history.  —  Philadelphia  In- 
quirer. 

140 


Quaint  Nantucket 


After  reading  Mr.  Bliss's  book  we  are  left 
with  the  impression  of  a  very  interesting  history 
of  Nantucket.  A  striking  chapter  is  that  which 
deals  with  sea  journals.  In  particular  the  jour- 
nal of  Peleg  Foulger,  who  interspersed  his  sea 
news  with  moral  reflections,  is  a  fascinating  doc- 
ument. 

"  We  Struck  a  large  Spermaceti  and  killed 
her  and  then  we  cut  a  Scuttle  in  her  head  and 
a  man  Got  in  up  to  his  Armpits  and  dipt  al- 
most six  hogsheads  of  clear  oyle  out  of  her 
case,  besides  six  more  out  of  the  Noddle.  He 
certainly  doth  hit  the  right  that  mingles  profit 
with  delight." 

That  little  observation  with  its  pleasantly 
mixed  savour  of  Herrick  and  of  the  common- 
sense  1 8th  century,  might  serve  as  the  motto  of 
Mr.  Bliss's  volume.  It  were  to  be  wished  in 
the  interests  of  profit  and  delight  that  books 
thus  dealing  with  local  history  might  be  col- 
lected in  the  large  centres.  In  the  library  of 
the  State  of  Massachusetts  "  Quaint  Nan- 
tucket "  would  assuredly  occupy  an  honourable 
place.  —  "Literature"  London  Times, 


141 


Various  Opinions  concerning 


Mr.  Bliss  has  the  trueyfo/r  for  the  quaint, 
and  knows  how  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
merely  accidental.  His  "  Quaint  Nantucket," 
though  written  with  a  light  pen  and  deft,  and 
lighted  up  by  a  glint  of  humor  here  and  there 
as  befits  the  subject,  is,  in  fact,  the  result  of 
serious  study,  and  must  always  contribute  its 
share  to  the  history  of  economics  in  early  New 
England  and  of  morals  and  manners  in  early 
times.  The  well-conceived  volume  contains 
extracts  from  ancient  town  records,  from  the 
Friend's  Meeting,  and  journals  of  the  sea-rovers 
who  for  two  centuries  made  the  fame  of  the 
Island  of  Nantucket.  The  selections  are  made 
with  fine  discrimination,  and  so  ably  woven  to- 
gether that  the  book  is  entirely  unique,  and 
may  well  serve  as  a  model  for  students  of  our 
early  history.  Then  men  of  earliest  Nantucket 
were  by  no  means  models  of  godliness,  nor  the 
women  either.  But  they  had  the  charm  of 
strong  originality,  of  a  robust  personality,  and 
this  book  makes  them  appear  very  real  and  very 
much  alive.  —  New  York  Evangelist. 


142 


Quaint  Nantucket 


A  book  pleasing  to  those  who  remember 
Nantucket  as  it  was  before  electric  lights  made 
commercial  that  dear  old  town,  is  the  story  of 
its  early  life  entitled  "  Quaint  Nantucket."  In 
this  book,  where  every  chapter  is  interesting, 
none  is  more  so  than  that  relating  to  the  birth 
and  growth  of  Quakerism.  Either  there  are 
fuller  records  in  Nantucket,  or  Friends  there 
had  improved  in  severity  on  the  methods  of 
English  brethren,  for  the  laws  of  the  meeting 
were  so  tyrannical  that  the  reader  wonders  .why 
it  did  not  die  sooner  than  it  did.  Members 
were  disowned  for  permitting  their  children  to 
marry  "  out  of  meeting,"  for  "  keeping  a  violin 
to  play  upon,"  and  even  for  the  way  they 
dressed  their  hair.  In  spite  of  the  Quaker  in- 
fluence, we  find  that  Stephen  Norton  swore 
"  one  profane  oath,"  and  u  one  profane  curse ; " 
and  in  accordance  with  its  spirit,  when  the  town 
desired  to  be  protected  against  fires,  the  select- 
men were  instructed  to  buy  ladders  and  buckets 
u  as  cheap  as  they  can."  —  Springfield  Republi- 
can. 


'43 


Various  Opinions  concerning 


Those  who  take  up  "  Quaint  Nantucket " 
with  the  idea  that  they  are  getting  hold  of  anew 
guide-book  will  be  disappointed.  Mr.  Bliss  has 
taken  his  subject  more  seriously.  His  narra- 
tive covers  a  period  of  two  hundred  years,  and 
it  ends  with  the  extinction  of  the  whaling  in- 
dustry. It  is  a  curious  fact  that  whales  began 
to  play  an  active  part  in  the  affairs  of  Nan- 
tucket  as  far  back  as  1668,  when  the  settlers 
made  a  bargain  with  Indians,  concerning  whales 
that  drifted  upon  the  shores.  The  shores  of 
the  island  were  marked  out  in  sections  and 
sachems  were  appointed  to  supervise  the  cut- 
ting up  of  stranded  whales  and  to  divide  the 
shares.  This  led  to  disputes  between  claimants, 
and  appeals  were  made  to  the  island  court  which 
decreed  :  —  u  That  no  Rack  Whale  that  come 
ashore  in  any  sachims  bounds  shall  be  cut  up 
until  all  the  masters  of  the  shares  that  belong  to 
that  whale  do  com  together."  .  .  . 

Mr.  Bliss  has  made  an  extremely  interesting 
volume,  which  throws  a  most  vivid  light  upon 
early  Nantucket  affairs.  —  Boston  Beacon. 


144 


"  Quaint  Nantucket 


"  SAINTS  PRESERVE  Us  !  "  .  .  .  The  author 
of  "  Quaint  Nantucket  "  says,  "  Quakerism 
was  a  power  that  suppressed  the  natural  emo- 
tions, dulled  ambition,  destroyed  manliness,  and 
reduced  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  men  to 
such  a  uniform  level  that  one  searches  in  vain 
for  any  individual  greatness  during  the  period 
of  its  dominion  over  Nantucket."  The  Quak- 
ers may  have  presented  a  forbidding  side  which 
the  author  has  seized  upon,  losing  sight  of  their 
Christian  sweetness.  Verily,  I  can  sympathize 
with  that  Nantucket  lady,  born  among  the 
Friends,  who  perusing  the  chapter,  "  The 
Dominion  of  the  Quakers,"  exclaimed :  "  I 
would  like  to  buy  a  dozen  of  these  books  that  I 
might  throw  them  in  the  fire  ! "  The  author 
continues  :  "  Those  plain,  square,  shingle-sided, 
unpainted  houses,  whose  cold  and  barren  look 
tells  of  the  nearness  of  the  sea,  are  reminders  of 
the  Quakerism  which  ruled  Nantucket  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years."  Saints  preserve  us  ! 
That  was  a  quaintness  brought  from  the  mother 
country.  How  otherwise  could  our  respected 
friend  have  found  so  charming  a  title  for  his 
book.  —  E.  V.  Hallett ;  to  Nantucket  Inquirer. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

.  l  I 


fitoetfibe 

Electrctyped  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Hougkton  &  Co 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


INTER-LIBRRY  LOAN 


.-D 

1  5  1961 


Ifini   I 


YB  20161 


193632 


